A Rift in New York
by TimeLordParadox
Summary: Strange weather conditions are plaguing New York city with no apparent logical nor spiritual explanation. The one person who might have an answer is a strange man called 'the Doctor' however things are set to get much worse because 'HE IS RETURNING'
1. Prologue

The Real Ghostbusters/Doctor Who crossover

**A Rift in New York**

By TimeLordParadox

(aka Ross Pickering)

**Prologue****,**

**June 1991**

Noon, just another hour before lunch, Donald Hinton thought as he passed his flashlight over cold, grey the cement walls, he was starving but he had to get this last job done first. This building was way overdue for some maintenance to its basement and that's what he and his work colleague, Russ, were here for but first they had to fill out a safety inspection before any such work could move along.

There had been reports of water seeping through minor cracks in the walls which is something they had to investigate for safety reasons. Unfortunately it also called for the electricity to be shut off to prevent the possibility of electrocution plunging the entire basement into darkness. The residence of this multi-storey apartment building would no doubt be complaining that they can't watch TV or something like that but this had to be done to maintain the building.

The two of them made their way slowly across the black corridor the only light coming from their torches and the only noise they could here were their footsteps as their boots made contact with the floor and echoed all around the long empty corridor. It was odd but the deeper they went the more it felt like they were entering a labyrinth of some sort. Unlike Theseus however they did not need a ball of string to find their way though this place, they had blue prints for the building and they were following them, but they had been walking for a long time following its directions trying to locate where these reported cracks were.

"Are you sure we're going the right way Russ?" he asked his colleague, a round man with a thin moustache.

"It's clearly marked out Donald" he said tapping the blueprint and traced his finger around it "We took a first left and second right." Donald leant over to get a better look at where Russ was pointing.

"These blueprints don't make sense" Donald said as he took one half of the paper from Russ so they could both see it. "Why is the basement shaped like this?"

"Don't know" said Russ, a slight ache escaped his stomach, he was obviously waiting for lunch time too. "I've never seen anything like it either but that's what it says and that's what we gotta follow" his words seem to echo around the corridor.

"Who the heck was the architect, Picasso?" it might as well have been, the higher floors including the ground floor were all shaped logically for an apartment building, but the basement looked like a winding twisting mass of confusion. The building was very old and so were the original blueprints which they were currently using, a name on the bottom said who the architect was. It read Ivo Shandor.

"Sounds like a painter to me" he said as they continued walking down the corridors which seemed to narrow as they moved through it. Squelch, squelch, squelch! They both stopped and looked down. They had just stood in something squishy and by the sound of it moist. Their feet were standing in some sort of liquid it was a pale shade of pink though in places it had spots of a purple blue and he just registered that it stank like rotten eggs. He passed his flash light further up the corridor; it was all over the floor ahead of them as the corridor disappeared into darkness too far for their flash lights to penetrate.

"What on Earth is this stuff?" asked Russ as he knelt down but made sure not to stick his knee in the stuff. "Is the water contaminated?"

Something dripped away in the distance and Donald passed his light down the corridor again. A long stream of thick gunk was stretching down into the sludge below and began to pool on the floor creating a little clump of the stuff as it slowly began to flatten out. Donald flashed his light upwards to see were the goop was coming from. His jaw dropped open. The entire ceiling was also covered in this stuff so were the walls all the way down this one corridor.

"Hey, is this that stuff that started coming out of the drains on New Years Eve a few years ago?" Russ asked as he scooped up some of the liquid in his gloved hand and tried to lift some up to take a look at. It did actually look like that slime stuff from a few years back the stuff had been all over the news because 'strange things' started happening as soon as it turned up, but that stuff was a bright shade of pink, this stuff looked pale as if it was dying.

He was starting to get an uneasy feeling, Donald knew whenever this stuff crept up somewhere bad things seem to happen. There was a story only a year ago about some of this stuff which started bubbling up to the surface from the Hudson River. When it did a ship coming into dock passed over it, got some stuck to its hull and somehow caused the crew to lose control of its steering and sinking several small boats before ploughed into Liberty Island. Again a few months before that a subway train had some of this stuff caught on its wheels, control was lost and it sped through the subway completely out of control, even when the power was cut it still kept going until the very last minute when the emergency break was switched, yet he remembered reading that despite the breaks being on the wheels were still desperately trying to rotate forwards as if they were possessed.

"Russ" he said trying not to let the rising panic welling up inside him to escape through his voice but unfortunately it did. "I think maybe we should get out of here and call in some 'specialists' to take a look at this stuff" he put emphasis on the word 'specialists' because he didn't want to use the word he wanted to us, he didn't believe in the supernatural but after seeing this very stuff mentioned in the papers again and again over the years since the incident at the New York Museum of Art he was starting to reconsider.

"You mean the Ghostbusters?" Russ asked.

"Exactly" Donald said as he turned to leave the way they had come, only to find themselves facing a solid wall, a wall which hadn't been there a moment before and it was covered in this pink slime.

"What the frig?" Donald said as he shone his light to see if had just tried to walk into the wall or if this was another corridor, but it was the way they had come and it was now closed off by a solid concrete wall.

"That wasn't here before" Russ said as he took a step back, the squelching noise his boot made in the gunk just served to remind Donald this slime was all around them.

"Okay now I'm really going to say it" Donald allowed the panic in his voice to show this time "Call the Ghostbusters" Russ quickly looked at the map despite the coldness of their environment sweat was starting to appear on his brow.

"Okay, if we go along here" he indicated with his torch deeper into the darkness "We should come to a communication point"

_Great_ Donald thought, but there was still a sense of dread that they had to continue through this stuff which stuck to all the walls like… like, he didn't know what like but it coated every surface. As they proceeded down the corridor the stuff squelching under their feet, Donald got the uneasy feeling that this place looked organic, like it was alive, like they were walking into something's digestive system.

A white mist passed in front of his face and he nearly jumped when he saw it, but then he realised it was just condensation from his breath. It was cold and he could feel that it was getting steadily colder as they went on. He wrapped his jacket more tightly around him trying to trap some of the heat he was losing.

Finally they found a square box bolted to the wall, a telephone. Doland went up to it and making sure his gloves were securely on his hands he wiped away the slime from the receiver and pressed down on the handle to make sure it was working and he got the satisfying mono tone of a connection. He didn't know the number of the Ghostbusters he never had to call them before so he decided to get in touch with the help desk at reception so they can call them in.

Someone picked up.

"Hello, reception?" he blurted out, he stopped to compose himself before he continued "This is the safety manager Donald, we're in a bit of a situation down here. Can you send help? Also you might want to consider calling the Ghostbusters" he said calm and collectively but made sure he got the message across to 'actually' call them. But no one was answering. He pressed down on the handle to check the connection.

"Hello?" he said into the receiver.

"He is returning" came a voice, a soft spoken, spooky female voice.

"Who is this?" he asked "Whoever you are call the Ghostbusters will you?"

"He is returning" the voice said again.

"Who is returning? What are you talking about?" he asked, an uneasy feeling creeping into his stomach. The voice didn't answer for a while and during that time Donald felt the temperature had dropped more and was still falling, when the voice did decide to speak again it said.

"Have a nice day" in a creepy cherish voice, then the phone hung up.

Donald pulled the phone away from his ear and look at it in confusion as he replaced it on the stand and waiting a few seconds before picking it up again to try to get in contact with someone again. But now there was no tone to the phone, there was nothing it was completely dead.

Dead? Not the right sort of words he wanted to choose right now, he decided as he replaced the phone on the hanger.

"Is there a phone somewhere that actually works Russ?" he asked. But Russ remained silent, "Russ?" Donald said. He turned around to face Russ, he was gone! "Russ?" he said spinning around to see if he was standing somewhere else but there was no sign, he shouted his name but still got no answer but the echo of his own voice, which rang back and forth along the pitch dark passage covered in pink slime.

He took a step forward and his feet squelched as his boots sank into the slime again. He suddenly stopped moving, he couldn't lift his other foot. He looked down to see if he had caught it on something and what he saw sent a shiver up his spine and his heart leaping icily into his throat.

It was a hand! A pink, fleshy, skinless hand that was coming up from that thin layer of slime like it was a deep ocean! He tried to pull himself free but the hand remained tightly gripped to him, it wasn't letting him go and it was tightening its grip as he continued to struggle. He gave one great heave to break free but he slipped and fell backwards, the flash light left his hand while he was in mid air and he slammed down on his back into the thin film of slime. He heard the flash light clatter to the ground somewhere and all light suddenly became extinguished replaced by nothing but blackness and silence and the cold.

Donald tried to get up and reach for his flash light so he could see again, but that vial hand still had hold of his ankle and as he tried to get up he felt something grab his other leg, then his left wrist, then his right one. He screamed, god he screamed as he felt more hands reaching up out of the slime and clamp down all around him holding him down, the more hands held him the more difficultly he had actually moving. He screamed so loud he felt his mouth become horse but his screams were silenced when a slimy, cold hand clamped down over his mouth.

* * *

**Author's**** notes**: Cue Ghostbusters or Doctor Who theme tune whichever you prefer ;)

This story is going to feature 'The Real Ghostbusters' from the cartoon and the Seventh Doctor.

**More to come soon...**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch went the snow under his feet. This weather was crazy, one minute it was sunny and warm the next it was bitterly cold and snowing a blizzard turning Manhattan into a giant snow globe. He had a feeling this was not natural and in his line of work nothing ever was, because he was a Ghostbuster. They were technically a group of ghost cops who went all over the city when called looking for unruly, mischievous spirits who wouldn't stay dead. They captured them and locking them away, for a fee of course they were a business.

Winston Zeddemore breathed into his scarf wrapped tightly around his mouth thankful for the warmth it spread over his face. Holding a shovel in his hands he began clearing the drive in front of his home which doubled up as the headquarters of his work place, a large three story firehouse.

It was bitterly cold for this time of the year it wasn't supposed to be time for the large warm coats and thick gloves yet. It wasn't even the time for snowmen and snowballs either he thought as one sailed through the air and hit him directly on the head.

Across the street a couple of kids playing in the snow enjoying the fun and games snow provided. After throwing a snow ball at Winston they ran off incase he could somehow get them in trouble. Though Winston enjoyed a snowball fight as much as anyone he wasn't enjoying this unseasonal weather they were having, mostly because he knew he had to drive through it in a vehicle no designed for these conditions. Usually the roads would've been gritted and salted by the authorities had been taken completely by surprise and so had the weather man, he had predicted a bright sunny day but then again how many times was the weather man ever right in his predictions?

The reason the authorities had been taken by surprise by this sudden turn in the weather was easy, because they were currently in the middle of June.

After clearing the short drive, so their car can drive out without skidding, his attention was caught by something floating off the roof of the firehouse. It was a small white ball which seemed to glow silver in the morning sunlight. This was no UFO though it was a genuine weather balloon. Egon Spengler, one of his work collogues and the brains of the team, was interested in this crazy weather and since they had no paying clients at the moment he had decided to turn that scientific mind of his towards investigating this crazy weather.

Winstons attention turned to the sign which hung outside their headquarters above the large main doors. The sign had the picture of a white ghost trapped inside a no smoking sign, this served as the logo for the Ghostbusters. Long icicles were growing from it that he'll have to remove, he decided, because they would be dangerous if they fell on anyone. Busting ghosts caused enough damage so they didn't need anyone suing them over falling icicles.

He walked over to the large pair of double doors which would open when their vehicle needed to be driven out, however for the much smaller customers the large doors were also fitted with smaller normal sized doors. He took the handle and pushed on the door, but they refused to budge.

"Oh man not again!" he said out loud, the doors were frozen shut like they were this morning and worst of all it began snowing again so all his hard work was going to be erased. The snow fast became a blizzard and Winston felt the biting cold more then he had before, because he knew he'd have to do this shoveling all over again. In frustration he put his shoulder to the door and it burst open, his foot got caught on the threshold and he fell through the door and landed on the solid tiled ground which knocked the breath out of him.

Sighing, he got up and closed the door again before the warm air escaped, or what little of it there was of it. The bottom floor of the firehouse was very large because it usually had to accommodate a large red fire engine so it wasn't designed to trap heat inside. These days however all it had to accommodate was Ecto-1.

Ecto-1 was the name they had given their car, a Cadillac Miller Meteor, it was quite a long car and was often tricky to maneuver because of its length, it was mostly white but it had its wings –the icon of the 60's Cadillac- painted red. On the top was a roof rack which was covered with thousands of electronic gadgets used for ghost detection. In front of and behind the rack were blue bar lights and other flashing lights to alert people to move out of the way when they were coming through. Winston wasn't with the company at the time when they built Ecto-1 from the hearse that it once was, but he had to admit they had probably gone overboard with all the lights, the only other thing in the country to have more lights stuck to it was the Las Vegas strip. The car had originally been used for both ambulances and for hearses though these days it transported the unruly, undead to their final resting place.

"Still snowing?" came a voice from under the car. While walking along the Ecto-1 he had failed to notice the legs of Ray Stanz sticking out from underneath. Ecto-1 was an old car and at times had to be put through some maintenance.

"It's worse then Alaska out there, Ray" Winston said as he removed his warm hat and scarf but kept his jacket on, Ray, who laid on a rolling board to easily get under and out from under the car, pulled on the car door and emerged from underneath. He was quite a cubby man with a round babyish face which had oil stains on it. His hair was a bright shade of red and his mouth was upturned in a smile. "The winds really picking up again" Winston added.

"I know isn't it great?" Ray said excitedly, Ray at times got over excited when it came to something unusual "It could be a weather demon, or a class C Stratos Beast or…"

Ray liked to go on like this, he went through every single type of creature he could think of, most of which Winston had never even heard of. Had they encountered these types before? Or were these new classifications Ray never decided to mention to them until now?

"Or it could be just a cold snap" Winston added when Ray mentioned the last ghost classification which could cause this.

"I don't think so" came another voice, this one was pretty level, dull but you could tell it was oozing with intellect. Egon Spengler came down the stairs his red glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he read from a book he had in his hands, his hair was blond bordering on white and twirled around into a crazy stile Winston had never seen on anyone else. He was also wearing a large and unfashionable coat to keep the cold out. "This doesn't have the hallmarks of an ordinary cold snap" and if Egon said it, it usually was true, this made him the bearer of bad news for the group because you half knew whatever theory he came up with chances were he was going to be right.

"New York is suffering the worst cold snap in years, yet the rest of the state is not feeling the effects, its warm and sunny out in the country and the rest of the New York state" he said as he placed a book he was looking at down on a desk at the back of office where their receptionist usually worked, however she was yet to arrive, probably due to the snow. Egon took his glasses off his nose and wiped them with a cloth before placing them back on. "If my estimations are correct New York is metaphorically stuck under a snow globe…" he stopped as the cogs in his head started working "10 miles in diameter and approximately 2 miles high."

"Wow!" said Ray in admiration, he got to his feet and wiped the motor oil off his face with a rag which just seemed to spread it out more over his face "What do you thinks causing this winter wonder land?"

"You mean winter nightmare!" Another shivering figure came down the stairs, this one was Peter Venkman, he was also wearing a large warm coat, he had brown hair which sat on top of a thin face "The toilets all frozen up and I have to… go!"

"Yeah, me too" came a high squeaky voice which sounded like it wasn't used to speaking English. Following Peter down the stairs was, what at first sight people would assume was a big green blob of slime which was floating in mid air oozing all over the place, but this green blob had a face, a mouth, a small nose, large eyes, and arms, this was actually a ghost. Slimer they named him. Some would consider it eccentric for people who bust ghosts to adopt one as a pet but Slimer had sort of been domesticated to behave himself more then other ghosts but he did have an enormous appetite and often raided and emptied the fridge for food to Peters annoyance.

"You're a ghost!" Peter said that annoyance clear in his voice "What do you need a toilet for?"

"Oh yeah!" said Slimer lightly smacking his head with his slimy hand as if he forgot he was dead. Peter and Slimer had never really been on the best of terms. Slimer was the first ghost the company had technically busted but escaped when the containment unit went belly up years ago releasing all the ghosts. While all the other ghosts escaped Slimer remained at Ghostbusters HQ where he proved to be harmless and timid yet still mischievous at times. Peter didn't like Slimer for one reason in particular, he'd 'slimed' him when they first met and ever since then Peter was paranoid he was going to do it again and often did though rarely on purpose. They had both mellowed over time but recently Peters' annoyance of the green ghost returned when Slimer ruined his date with a potential client by eating all the chocolates he'd bought her leaving nothing but a mass of slime inside. Either that or it was because Slimer was wearing Peters scarf and hat to keep warm, both of which were now covered and moist with slime.

"I'd have to say Peters' right, this weather is not going to be good for New York" Egon said

"So a few schools close down and the kids get a snow day, so what?" Peter said halfheartedly.

Egon ignored him "Whatever's causing this 'cold dome' it's clearly not a natural phenomenon, but my according to my data there is no apparent source of PKE causing this either."

"Why would ghosts turn the big apple into the big icicle?" Winston asked.

"Maybe they want time off work" Peter said

"Ghosts don't hold down jobs Peter" Egon said completely missing Peters joke "and I'm not entirely sure if this has anything at all to do with the super natural"

"Then what do you thinks causing it Egon?" Ray asked

"I don't know" Egon said thinking "but the ghosts aren't causing it"

"Then it's out of our jurisdiction" Peter said as he walked towards a side door which would lead to the alleyway outside. He turned around to look at Slimer who was still following him, he held up a finger as he addressed the green spud in annoyance "You! Stay here, this is private business!" He opened the door and stepped through closing it loudly behind him. Slimer looked sorrowful, his arms drooped as he started to float away.

"Hey, don't worry about it Slimer" said Ray putting a hand on Slimers shoulder and immediately regretted it as thick slime came away with his fingers, though he tried not to show his discomfort incase it upset Slimer even more. "He'll cool down eventually"

"Ray" Winston shivered, it was still freezing inside the firehouse "Don't even mention 'cooling down'"

Ray chuckled lightly "Sorry Winston"

A whistling sound came from upstairs that sounded like the kettle, a nice warm drink of coffee is exactly what he needed right now.

"Sounds like that slime sample's finally reached boiling point" Egon said as he turned picked up his book and started climbing back up the stairs.

"Egon" Winston asked as he started to follow him "You didn't use the kettle to boil that slime did you?"

"Of course" Egon said and Winstons hope of a warm drink faded, he'd have to boil water in a pan he decided "You can use it in an hour or so, I just need to transfer the top layer of excess slime to a beaker and leave the lower layer of slime to ferment for an hour."

Egon never seemed to understand how disgusting some of his experiments were, last week he filled the bath tub with a foul smelling culture of ectoplasm he collected from a ghost who, unfortunately for Ray, Peter and himself, seemed to have an unlimited supply of the stuff on it. It reeked and was disgusting and it took the enamel off the bath. Winston still wasn't confident to use it uncase his skin spontaneously fell off and now he was thinking of the disgusting state the kettle would be in. "I think I'll pass on that Egon"


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"…and the unexpected turn in the weather has meteorologists baffled as this bizarre blizzard continues to assault the city" said the news reporter "some are claiming this is the effect of global warming causing extremes at both ends of the scale yet this does not explain why the rest of the state of New York is apparently unaffected. The quick formation of ice has brought chaos to the streets causing several vehicle accidents. Police are requesting everyone remain in their homes and if the need arises to travel anywhere then its best if you take the subway as both buses and cabs are also out of action. The mayor has been swift with the remedy to the traffic problem as salt and grit vans are on a mission to ensure this unseasonal ice is cleared from the streets. More on this story as it comes in"

Don't travel unless necessary? She'd wished they'd said that this morning before she left for work, Janine Melnitz thought to herself with a shiver. She usually took the subway to work so she wasn't exactly late since snow didn't affect underground trains much, but even her winter coat, scarf and hat weren't keeping her warm inside the firehouse. How can a building with a name sounding so warm be so cold?

Janine was the receptionist and had been since the Ghostbusters formed years ago, she was quite tall with dull looking eyes which were half hidden behind a pair of green spectacles. She had red hair which was curled into an unusual style but was currently hidden by her woolly hat keeping her head warm.

The guys had tried to raise the temperature by doing several things, most of which were setting up electric heat radiators but the building was so poorly insulated that most of the heat escaped the firehouse anyway. Ray had even gone as far as to suggest shutting down the cooling system to the ecto containment unit because the atmosphere was so cold it wouldn't need it. But they had all looked at him as if he was mad. Everybody, even she knew the golden rule of the house 'don't mess with the containment grid'.

Even Slimer was feeling the cold, he looked paler then usual and his slime started to solidify like water. However this turned his slippery slime into something ten times more slippery which was an annoyance especially for Peter who still hadn't forgiven him for ruining his date with a client last week.

She looked at the small TV again over her green framed spectacles, the weatherman was now predicting sunny weather this Sunday. _Yeah right_ she thought _you said today was supposed to be warm and sunny_. She sighed and a cloud of vapour escaped from her mouth. Why did she become receptionist to the Ghostbusters? She thought, she should've suspected this place would be freezing in winter –not freezing in summer as well- but it was the only paying job there was and it was easy for her. Maybe it was because she had developed an attachment to the Ghostbusters, they sort of felt like family to her since they had been together for years busting ghosts and saving the world. But more likely it was because she had developed an attachment to one of the Ghostbusters in particular, Egon Spengler, she had tried and often failed to attract his attention many times but every time she tried Egon's awkwardly ignored her –though she was sure he didn't realise he was actually doing it- or acted like he was unsure what to do. This emotion ignorance was basically what created this wall between them both but Janine still kept trying.

At first she didn't think anything serious about this job, chasing and catching ghosts, she thought it was all a joke but it was a paying joke at least. But when she got that first call years ago from the Sedgwick hotel saying they've seen a live ghost in their corridors and they wanted the Ghostbusters to get rid of it she first thought it was a gag but did her job and took down the address and sent the guys on their way. She thought they'd turn up, realise the mistake, look like they had egg on their faces and return. But when the three Ghostbusters returned carrying a smoking black box and Peter covered in green gunk she quickly reconsidered her hasty assumption of a false alarm.

After that calls were flooding in from all over New York, more and more ghosts and ghouls were being sighted and the guys turned up to bust them. She remembered that phone on her desk was lit up like a Christmas tree _yeah, it was cold enough for Christmas right now_ she thought. They were buried in so much work they had hired Winston Zeddemore as another Ghostbuster to help them.

This went on for years until one day law suits dating from recent damage to public property all the way back to the destruction of the top three floors of an uptown apartment tower after Ray conjured up a 100 foot tall marshmallow man. So they were shut down by a restraining order preventing them from perform services as paranormal investigators or eliminators.

However when the Ghostbusters went to court over another matter a few years later, and the 'spiritually sceptical' judge was about to sentence them to a prison terms because he thought they were just con artists and leaches feeding off peoples fear of the unknown. But just before he made the sentence official he was attacked by a couple of vengeful spirits he'd previously tried for murder and had executed when they were alive. The judge was in a difficult situation, swallow his pride and lift both the restraining order and prison terms to allow the Ghostbusters to take care of the angry spirits or die horribly when the ghosts got their cold dead hands on him. In the end he had lifted the restraining order and the Ghostbusters were back in business.

For the past few years now business was pretty consistent, and to prevent another law suit like last time every customer had to sign a document to say that 'the Ghostbusters are in now way responsible for damage to personal belongings or private property as a result of the apprehension of said supernatural entity' when they usually saw this shoved under their noses they sometimes had second thoughts about hiring them, but after a few days or hours they soon changed their minds when they found the restless spirits wouldn't just go away and would in the long run probably cause more damage then the Ghostbusters would catching it.

The phone rang loudly, the noise assaulted Janines cold ears as she picked up the receiver in her gloved hand and lifted it up to her head.

"H-H-Hello G-G-G…" she shivered slightly before starting again "H-H-Hello, Ghostbusters"

* * *

Everything seemed to be in working order, Egon decided as he ticked off the safety procedure for checking over the containment grid, a large red looking vessel which sat in their large dark basement gently humming to itself. This was the jail for all the ghosts they caught, they transfer them from their temporary prisoners, the smaller traps they caught them in and deposited them into this red vessel where they remained locked away hopefully for good.

He he'd noticed Slimer was floating above the containment unit vent enjoying the massive amount of heat the thing usually put out. Shame that Ray's idea, though it was inventive, was far too dangerous, there were too many angry spirits trapped inside there and if there was any chance they would be released they'd all go for revenge over the four who locked them away in the first place, namely Egon, Ray, Winston and Peter. They'd all come after them, the angry ghosts, goblins, gargoyles, ghouls and gods. Hmm. Egon thought, funny how everything they seem to bust began with a G.

The containment system also contained several exceedingly dangerous ghosts who would not only destroy the Ghostbusters but bring about the end of the world as they knew it.

Egon tapped a gauge on the containment system to make sure it was working correctly, it was cold to the touch. Everyone was cold, but thankfully Egon wasn't because his coat, despite being unfashionable had a heating element inside it which kept the coat warm. The was only one problem, it kept getting hotter and hotter and sooner or later he'd have to take it off or die of heatstroke but then that caused a tricky paradox, because it would too cold to get out of his coat, yet too warm to stay wrapped up in it.

A loud noise pierced his ears and Slimer jumped up from the top of the containment system and hit the ceiling so hard he was bent out of shape into a splat of green slime which stuck to the ceiling. That loud noise was the alarm bell, they had a call.

Egon vaulted up stairs to the first floor, Winston came in through the front doors after clearing the path in front of the firehouse for the second time.

"Yow!" came Peters loud yelp "Its freezing"

In the ceiling were several holes through each extended one long pipe which went the length of the building. As a firehouse it was obvious what this was used for but apparently the other two Ghostbusters were hesitating to use them because they were so cold.

"Come on Peter" Ray complained "Times a wasting!"

"You'll never get me to go down that freezing pooooOOOLEE!" Peter suddenly appeared legs first coming down the pole a scared look on his face as he gripped the fire pole tightly in his hands. The unmistakable smudge of slime on his shoe told Egon he'd just slipped in a pool of Slimers frozen and slippery slime. As Peter landed on the tiled floor his boot which still had slime on it caused his feet to slip out from under him and he landed backwards on the ground.

"I'll get that little spud for this!" Peter complained as he got up and stepped back from the pole to allow Ray to come down it. Ray, on the other hand was wearing gloves with his jump suit uniform while Peter wore nothing on his hands.

"Next time Ray, I choose the building for the headquarters" Peter complained "Preferably one with an elevator"

"Ahem" came Janine's voice, her fingers holding up a slip of paper with the address of their call on it which Egon swiped from her fingers and with a speed that would've made the old firemen of this firehouse proud the Ghostbusters wasted no more time climbing into their vehicle. With Ray behind the wheel he started up the car and revved the engine, and best of all, the car had a working heater. Unfortunately what greeted them was a blast of cold air because the engine hadn't warmed up yet.

Egon sat in the back behind Ray and through the rear view mirror he could see Janine not very energetically waving them off. A green shape then jumped up from the floor, Slimer. He quickly zoomed over to Janine and gave her one of his slimy goodbye kisses which he hadn't done in a while. This also covered Janine in pale green slime.

"UUGghh!" Janine squealed "Slimer, you're freezing!"

Slimer just managed to catch this as he passed through the rear hatch of Echo-1 to join the Ghostbusters in the slowly warming environment where Slimer started to regain some of his natural darker shade of green.

"Let's go!" Slimer squeaked in a high pitched voice

But the big doors weren't opening, he was sure one of them had hit the door release when they climbed inside yet the doors remained firmly closed.

"Oh man, don't tell me the doors frozen solid" said Winston

"How long will it take to defrost them?" Ray asked as Egon did some quick calculations in his head.

"About 15 minutes and 35 seconds" he replied.

"Forget that" Ray said as he put Ecto-1 in gear and started up the bar lights. Egon had an uneasy feeling he knew what Ray was going to do.

"Woah, wait a minute Ray" Winston tried to say "There's something you need to know…"

But Winston never got to finish what he wanted to say as the entire car jerked forward and accelerated rapidly. As soon as Ecto-1's bumper made contact with the door they practically burst open and Ray drove the Cadillac out into the New York street, their distinctive siren blaring out. But as Ray tried to make the first turn the car was sent into an almighty spin causing Ecto's heavy loaded rear to swing out. Egon held on for his life as did the other Ghostbusters as the world circled around them. Ecto only came to a stop when it slammed sideways into a lamppost across the street and stalled the engine.

"What happened?" Ray asked as the other four looked at him annoyingly.

"You just collected another couple of points on your license" said Peter coolly though there was a hint of annoyance.

"Sorry, guys." Ray said shrugging as he restarted the engine again "Guess they haven't gritted the roads here yet"

"Guess they haven't" Winston said, as Ray put the car back into gear.

"Okay let's try this again, Ray" Egon said levelling his glasses after they slipped in the spin "only this time we take it slowly."


	4. Chapter 3

**Authors notes:** I've decided to tell this story primarily from the Ghostbusters point of view, you'll see why in a few chapters ;)

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Ecto-1's siren echoed around the city as the white Cadillac slowly crept around the icy roads of New York. Their slow progress was rewarded when their path exited onto the ring road that circles the outer island of Manhattan. The road had been gritted allowing Ecto-1 to build some speed but still even here their progress was halted because the entire road was soon taken up with thousands of commuting New Yorkers trying to get to work amidst the chaos and had the same idea to join the road.

Ray put his arm against the door and looked out the window with a bored expression on his face, though he was driving the white hearse the traffic didn't look like it was going to move any time soon, he yawned.

Their destination was a warehouse down by the docks which this road would lead directly to. But looking at this traffic Ray wondered if they would've got their sooner if they drove at 5 mph on iced roads instead of joining this traffic jammed de-iced one. Hours they spent in Ecto-1 waiting for the traffic to sluggishly move but at least they were warm inside the car. It was so cold outside Ray was almost certain he could see ice starting to form on the glass. He wanted to open the window to see, just for something to do but held back because he knew the guys would probably throw stuff at him for letting the heat out.

Slimer sat in between him and Winston and was slowly dribbling his slime unintentionally onto the seat, Winston started to get upset and told Slimer to wait in the back which the sulking little spud obeyed. Winston loved this car just as much as he did, probably more, Ray smiled when he remembered something that happened years ago. Winston had spent all day polishing and cleaning Ecto for a motor show, he'd become obsessed with it, anything that would potentially damage or erase his hard work got his goat. Unfortunately for him, on the day before the motor show Ecto-1 had been possessed by a mutated Indian earth spirit that took Ecto on a joy ride through the city.

Suddenly they were moving again, but just as the traffic had started moving it stopped again, like the entire city it was as if the traffic here was frozen solid as well. But thankfully after a few hours of snail's pace driving they reached the turn off for the docks and Ray was allowed to build up speed again because the road ahead was unblocked, Ecto's sirens blared back to life again warning people of its imminent approach and arrival.

They slowed down at the gate to the dock because they expected to be asked for identification or papers or something like that, but surprisingly the gate just parted and the guard on duty just ushered them inside. Ray allowed Ecto-1 to tear past the guard on duty and into the wide open area of the dock. According to the scrap of paper with the job details on it their exact destination was warehouse 13 at the far side of the docks. Warehouse 13 sounded spooky, Ray thought, just the type of place ghosts would hang out.

Ray found warehouse 13 without much difficulty because it was obviously the warehouse with the most activity around it. There were police cars and ambulances parked close to a warehouse next to the river and around the large building he could see yellow police boundary tap, the sort that read 'Police Line Do Not Cross'.

As they approached Ray slammed on Ecto's breaks. Though the concrete ground did not look slippery or icy it only looked that way because it was very deceptive, it was in fact incredibly slippery and Ecto-1 at first couldn't gain any grip as she skidded towards the collection of police cars and ambulances. Ray removed his foot from the break and pushed it down again and still Ecto didn't slow down. He raised his foot and slammed it down hoping for some supernatural force to stop them, but even that wasn't working. Suddenly everyone and everything in Ecto jerked forward as the car's tires finally found grip rapidly, the tries screeched as Ecto tried to prevent the collision between itself and the ambulance directly ahead. Thankfully the car came to a stop almost touching nose to nose with the white ambulance.

"Nice driving Ray" Peter said coolly "Do Manhattan a favour and never become a cab driver."

Ray felt himself turn slightly red with embarrassment, he tried to laugh but only half heartedly as he said "Sorry guys"

* * *

As they all exited the vehicle Egon noticed something odd immediately, in fact he'd noticed something odd before they even stopped. Why, when Ecto-1 was skidding across a smooth icy road did it suddenly find a great amount of resistance when it couldn't before? As Egons boot hit the ground when exiting Ecto the answer became obvious but raised further questions, the ground here wasn't icy at all, it was very damp but not icy. Egon could walk on it and not get the feeling he was going to slip or fall over, which was a change. Another thing that was odd was the general background temperature. When they left the firehouse it was close to freezing point and looking at the tall buildings of Manhattan in the distance the place was still iced up. Even the other warehouses around them had long, thin icicles growing from their overhanging slanted roofs. But the temperature right now, in this small area where Egon was standing was very mild like a spring day and the air had the similar scent of morning due in the countryside.

This didn't make any sense, he decided, there must be an additional factor. He pulled out his P.K.E. meter from his belt and activated it. Immediately the arms on its side rose upwards and the screen was flooded with P.K.E. readings. Wave forms danced across the screen as he observed. It was all really quite fascinating.

He turned and pointed the meter at the haunted warehouse and was rewarded with even more readings. By the look of the meter the warehouse contained several smaller vapours and something quite large, though he wasn't able to tell what classes they were, the readings were too inconclusive because as the wave forms danced around the screen the reading started to become a collection of unreadable peaks and troughs, it was as if something was muffling the P.K.E. signal.

As Egon examined this with curiosity he noticed at a glance that Winston had opened the back hatch of Ecto-1 and was pulling out the wrack that held all their equipment, proton guns and traps, everything. Ray started pulling one of the heavy proton pack packs onto his back. The pack was like a square mass of electronics which sat on the edge of a short cylinder with three lights on it which was a particle accelerator. From the bottom half of the nuclear accelerator was a long snaking tube which rose up and connected through the handle of a long wand like device hanging from the side of the machine on a small hook. On the other end of this wand was a long tube which, when everything was activated, would emit a long particle stream like water from a hose.

Peter was talking to one of the police officers on duty, a conversation which usually entailed, 'what's happening', 'who's been injured' but almost certainly would be steered by Venkman onto the most important issue, the price for hiring them to remove the ghosts.

Because their methods of ghost capturing would entail a little damage to either public or private property it was mandatory for anyone hiring them these days to sign a contract which stated clearly that they were not responsible for the destruction of private or public property while in the process of busting a ghost. This prevented very nasty lawsuits against them, something they wanted to avoid because the last time all the lawsuits from previous busts had nearly ran them out of business permanently.

But Egon wasn't interested in what was going on around him, he was fascinated by what was going on here, in front of him. He held up his P.K.E. meter at the warehouse and moved a little closer. Though he couldn't detect what was inside the warehouse he was getting a very clear signal, somewhere close, very, very close. He was about to pass under the 'Police line, do not cross' tape when Egon felt a hand on his shoulder that nearly made him jump out of his skin and he rather embarrassingly yelped in surprise.

"I wouldn't get too close if I were you" said the rough voice of one of the police officers on duty. Egon looked questionably at him and was about to ask the obvious question of 'why not' when the officer reached into his jacket and pulled out a half eaten bag of Stay Puft Marshmallows. He reached in and plucked one from the plastic packet before he put the others away.

Holding the squashy marshmallow cylinder in his fingers he gently tossed it towards the warehouse, and as it passed over the yellow police line the squashy marshmallow immediately and spontaneously burst into flames for a few seconds as it travelled across its path, then just as the flames had appeared they were extinguished leaving a dry looking blackened husk that crumpled to dust when it hit the ground.

"That's one way to cook marshmallows" Winston said as he appeared at Egon's side.

"It's all around the warehouse" the officer said "it's like a shield or a force field surrounding the warehouse"

Egon gazed on in interested before returning his attention to his P.K.E.

"This is amazing!" Ray said, his face full of glee and excitement "Can you think of the sort of super concentrated psychic energy required to create and maintain a manifestation of thermal energy like that? Super concentrated heat, it isn't even radiating out, it's all staying exactly in this wall! Oh boy this is great!"

That was something else that fascinating Egon, he was nearly within touching distance of the wall and he wasn't feeling any heat radiation from it. It was obviously emitting some small amount of heat, that's why this area was probably much milder then the chilly big apple, but it wasn't emitting heat like a fire would when you got near it. The tip of his P.K.E. began to smoke and smoulder, he pulled it out of the barrier before any permanent damage could be done to the delicate piece of equipment. The temperature only appeared to shoot up only when you passed a specific point.

"Hmm." Egon mumbled, Ray did have another point as well. Ghosts, especially the higher class ones had been known to throw up defences but never anything this large or requiring energy on this level.

"What is it Egon?" Winston asked "I don't like it when you get that concentrated, worried look on your face"

"It's just a theory" Egon mused "But I suspect the dropping temperature of Manhattan and the heat barrier could be connected"

"How?" Ray asked, as if like a small child asking why a rainbow exists.

"I don't know" Egon stated as he looked back up at the warehouse again "But I think whatever threw up this barrier did it specifically to keep people, perhaps 'us' especially, out."

"So how do we disappoint them and get in?" Winston asked

"Tried knocking?" Venkman said flippantly

"Knocking won't work Peter" Egon said, he didn't know why he treated Venkmans jokes so seriously even though he was aware they were not serious statements "This is a wall of heat, there is no substance to it to knock on."

He was sure he heard Peter mutter to Winston "Too easy" before he went back to his musings. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Ah Ha!" he said "I've got it!"

He turned to the other three Ghostbusters "The heat wall is basically a wall of energy in pure form" he said, but his colleges didn't seem to catch on immediately so he gave them a little more information. "Now energy can't be created nor destroyed, hence a perfect defence, but you can change the state the energy is in" Still the others hadn't caught on to his idea.

"Egon, you're gonna have to learn to speak lay language, it's a very common language used by most people on the planet, I find it useful" Peter said dryly.

"So..." Egon said cutting Peter off "...we can drain the wall temporarily by introducing an additional factor to convert the energy from one form to another."

"That's a brilliant idea Egon" Ray said enthusiastically. Egon modestly stood impassively and said "Yes, I know"

"But there's one thing Egon" Ray asked confusing growing over his face "How are we going to do that?"

Egon features, though not very expressive most of the time shifted into what most of them knew as the 'wise man look' a look which said to them he knew exactly what to do.

* * *

It had only taken Egon a few minutes but he'd rigged the large proton cannon on top of Ecto-1 to fire a beam of super charged particles. Usually the cannon fired a super compressed beam of protons but he'd adjusted the output to release a number of other particles with names Peter had never heard of before, but according to Egon the emitting particles would convert the thermal energy into kinetic energy and then into potential energy. Peter didn't really have a clue what he meant but just went along with it.

Winston got behind the wheel of Ecto-1 and positioned her so she faced the warehouse dead on. The only problem with the setup according to Egon was the device would only create a tiny hole in the heat barrier that will only remain open as long as the beam continued to fire. But this centuries Einstein was concerned that his adjustments to the cannon would not last very long and would short it out allowing the bubble to reseal before they passed through. Therefore the moment the cannon was activated they'd have to drive at the barrier with Ecto-1 and pass straight through the hole before the cannon shorted.

"Egon, are you sure this is going to work?" Ray asked as Egon preformed a few final adjustments.

"Of course it's going to work" Egon said unconcerned "It's only got a 45.91467% probability of imminent failure"

"Just checking" Ray said

"And a 15.65234% of blowing up and taking out half the docks with it" Egon added as he tried to weld two small wires together.

"Egon, will you stop talking before I reconsider my ghostbusting career!" Peter said peevishly to his college.

"It's ready" Egon announced as, without warning he flipped a switch that turned the cannon on. It produced a low hum which started slowly to build up and become louder with each passing second.

The emergency services were aware of what was about to take place and so had repositioned their vehicles so they were clear of Ecto-1's run path.

Peter and Ray climbed into Ecto and buckled their seat belts and Slimer passed back in through a window. Peter had a funny feeling about this. Egon's plans often didn't go exactly to plan and this one required them to rely on a piece of machinery Egon had hastily wired together that at any moment could potentially blow them off the face of the planet.

Ecto-1 roared to life and Winston waited for Egon to give the signal.

"Now" Egon said. Now? What does he mean now? He hasn't fired the gun yet? But Peter's thoughts had no effect on Winston who obeyed Egons instructions and put his foot on the accelerator. They started speeding towards the heat wall which with each passing second was coming closer and closer, and still Egon had not fired the gun. They didn't even know if it was going to work, Egon didn't test it before they attempted this plan, what if it didn't work?

"Egon, what are you doing?" Peter protested "Fire the thing"

"I don't want to risk shorting it out if it lasts only a few seconds" Egon called back from the roof of their converted hearse. If Egon was wrong then the hearse going to be carrying four more dead bodies when it passed through the barrier.

The invisible incineration wall was fast approaching though none of them could see it. Peter could see concern start to grow across both Winston and Rays face when Ecto was only about fifty yards from hitting it and frying. Peter couldn't help himself, he screamed, as did Slimer who flung his slimy arms around him sliming up his uniform again and screamed at the top of his voice as they both stared at the wall of death in front of them.

Suddenly a long beam of multicoloured light fired from the roof with an odd sound of waving energy. It impact the heat wall as if it was solid and what looked like an arch began to form around it reaching to the ground, an arch of shimmering air as the heat shield was opened up.

As Ecto began to pass through the sound of the energy beam cut off suddenly, they were half through the barrier too late to stop now, they had to get through now before the barrier resealed itself. The temperature was starting to get very warm, though if this was how it was supposed to feel or if this was the barrier resealing Peter didn't know. They didn't even know how thick the barrier was, was it as thick as the distance to the warehouse? If it was then they were all dead.

What sounded like two exploding bombs followed by the sound of shattering glass issued from somewhere at the rear of Ecto-1. Where they dead or were they through? Peter was suddenly jerked forward as Winston put his foot down onto the break and stopped the large heavy hearse just in time before it impacted the far wall and crashed. The rapid deceleration caused Slimer to fly forwards, lose his grip on Peter and smack into Ecto's windscreen forming a blob of green slime that simply mumbled the word "Ouch"

They were alive!

* * *

They didn't realise how close they were to frying until they exited Ecto-1 and inspected the rear of the Cadillac. The tips of the red wings were burnt black and the reverse and tail lights had all burst. Ray summarised it was from the rapid pressure build up contained inside them as the temperature rapidly rose.

They were alive, but now they were sealed inside the heat barrier, and if they couldn't find the source and stop it then they were probably stuck here because the proton cannon had fused.

The four Ghostbusters now donned their proton packs and were preparing to enter the warehouse to not only capture ghosts but to discover what was causing this heat dome over the warehouse and hopefully what was causing the cold dome over the entire city.

From the other side of the heat dome the rescue services were concerned because if the Ghostbusters stepped in there, there was absolutely no chance of rescue. But Ray knew they had been in much more dangerous situations then this before.

The four Ghostbusters approached the warehouse doors and immediately they had a problem. As Winston tried the door it refused to open, it was locked.

"Hey!" Winston shouted across to the people at the other side of heat barrier "Anyone got a key for this?"

One of the people on the opposite side of the barrier, a man in a dull grey boiler suit tossed something through the barrier. It glowed a bright red as it passed through and when it left the barrier and landed on the ground it was a molten lump of metal that sank into itself and spread out before hardening, if that was the key then it was useless now.

"Stand back" Peter said taking the wand of his proton gun from the hook on his pack "I've got a skeleton key"

He pointed the weapons mussel at the stubborn door, the owners had signed the agreement so any damage they caused in the process of ghostbusting was not counted against them or their pay. From the tip of the mussel a small ball of light formed quickly and from that came a beam of orange and yellow light, a solid light beam which began to wave from side to side like a shaking rubber cord as it emitted a lashing type noise almost like a whip that was continually waving and cracking. As the stream of protons impacted the door it burst open off its hinges with a loud bang and landed a little ways inside the warehouse. Peter released his fingers from the trigger button and the beam vanished in an instant.

They approached and entered the now door-less doorframe that was blackened in places and smoking. But as Slimer approached the door to enter with them, the little spud suddenly froze and Ray nearly walked into the back of him.

"Slimer" Ray asked "What's wrong"

Slimer's mouth opened and closed but refused to make a sound, he was starting to shiver wildly like he had a cold, or like he was scared.

"Slimer?" Ray asked waving his hands in front of the green spuds orange eyes that were wide with fear. Then the class 5 vapour turned, screamed loudly and rushed back into Ecto-1 passing through her front windscreen and began cowering in the back of the vehicle. Ray wanted to see what was up with the little spud when Peter called at him to hurry up. He'll ask what Slimer was so scared of later.

As Ray entered the gloomy warehouse Egon already had his P.K.E. meter out again and began scanning the area. Peter, Winston had their small flashlights out and lit, the small lights did nothing to improve the gloom, even when Ray pulled out his own from his belt and lit it up. The only light source which was not coming from either their flash lights or Egon's P.K.E. was from the large translucent windows high up the wall which didn't let in as much light as they could've because the inside of the warehouse at ground level was still very dark, because the warehouse was full of large wooden crates stacked on top of one another almost filling the large building.

"What are we dealing with, Egon?" Ray asked excitedly

Egon adjusted a knob on his P.K.E. and adjusted the energy readings, the P.K.E. signatures of their targets appeared and were much clearer this time. Egon guessed it was the heat barrier that was muffling the signal before.

"A class 7 with multiple class 4's" Egon announced, class 4's were not high on the danger list when it came to ghostbusting, but class 7's were an immediate danger to everyone. The higher the class of ghost the more powerful and therefore more dangerous it was.

"Oh boy!" Ray said "A class 7, how often do we come across one of them?"

"Too often" Peter interjected

"I love a man who enjoys his work" Winston added.

Winston, Peter and Ray drew their proton wands but Egon didn't, he was still bent over his P.K.E. examining the readings and began leading them in a particular direction, before he stopped and started taking in the tall walls of crates around them.

"It could be very dangerous" Egon said suddenly "Firing concentrated bursts in such a confined space like this"

Ray looked around, this was indeed a very confined space with countless wooden crates that raised high into the air like skyscrapers of a miniature city. It was almost like that warehouse at the end of that Harrison Ford movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. One carelessly aimed proton blast could bring all the crates down on top of them.

"I think we'd better split up" Ray said, if they divided then there was less chance of blasting down when firing at ghosts.

"Good idea" Egon said "Winston and I will take this path" Egon pointed down the small corridor of wooden crates where it separated into a T junction and indicated the right path. "Ray and Peter take the opposite path. We'll report anything unusual we find to each other."

"Terrific" Peter said dryly.

* * *

They didn't say much more when they separated and continued on their own individual paths. Winston's flash light illuminated the path ahead, the air was eerily silent except for the sound of their own footsteps, the light whine of the particle accelerators in their proton packs, and the light ringing sound of Egons P.K.E. meter.

Curious, Egon thought. He turned a knob on the side of the meter to eliminate certain energy signatures, one by one until he came to one signal he was interested in. It was unlike any type of P.K.E. signature he'd seen before in his life as a psychic investigator. The reason it was so odd was because unlike other signatures this one didn't remain constant. It's wavelength and amplitude kept shifting and altering becoming longer then shorter and taller than shorter, and sometimes inverting itself entirely, like it was pulsating, like whatever it was the meter was picking up was undecided about whether it should exist or not.

The arms on his P.K.E. suddenly rose as high as they would go, the meter was picking up something that was much, much closer. He turned off the filters so he could see the entire P.K.E. spectrum of the immediate area. There was a big spike. The air around them was beginning to become gradually colder and the atmosphere started to be filled with a certain sense of imminent dread and depression, something was about to happen and the readings on the meter backed it up.

"Event imminent!" Egon warned, almost too late. Crash! Winston pointed his flash light above them and the tall wall of crates which rose above them was collapsing, the heavy boxes were going to fall on top of them.

"Look out!" Winston shouted and they both ran and leapt out of the way as the crates fell and impacted were they had been not a few seconds ago. More crates crash on top of the others and more crash on top of them. When the loud crashes were finished and the pile of broken crates became still Egon was aware that the fall crates had become a giant, un-scalable wall of wreckage.

"Egon, Winston, are you guys alright?" said Rays concerned voice over Egon's walkie-talkie.

"I'm fine" Winston's voice cracked "Egon, do you copy?"

Egon took his walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it "I copy Winston, I'm alright"

"What happened?" Ray asked with just as much concern as before.

"Ghosts just tried to take us out" Winston said

Egon reviewed his P.K.E. readings, the arms on the top had dropped back down indicating the immediate area was back to normal.

"I don't think so" Egon said into the walkie-talkie "The P.K.E. showed a rise in psychic energy but it didn't have the normal energy signature of a ghost, this may be something more dangerous than a routine busting job."

"I'm missing your cheery insights already, Egon" said Peters voice with sarcasm.

"Egon" said Winston's voice "I can't get to you, there's no way I can climb this"

"Then we'll have to go solo at least for a while" Egon said returning to his P.K.E. readings.

"Wait, Egon" said Winston "wasn't it one of your rules to never go ghostbusting solo?"

Egon didn't answer, he was too busy with the P.K.E. there was something odd about that reading he was examining. Maybe it had the answer to everything. He stopped momentarily next to a parked and abandoned forklift and began systematically eliminated all the other readings from the P.K.E. again so only the anomalous reading remained. Again the wave form kept altering and changing its wavelength, amplitude and frequency all at once. It was as if it was going through a cycle, because the wave on the meter altered in a precise pattern before cycling back and altering the waveform in the same manner again. Whatever it was it appeared that it still hadn't decided if it wanted to exist or not. But with each passing moment Egon registered that its cycle was speeding up becoming faster and faster, altering more and more. What did this mean?

Rattle, rattle, rattle, Egon heard as the loose machinery in the forklift next to him began to vibrate rapidly, why, he didn't know because the ground was stable and there was no evidence of another imminent 'spectral event'. He could also hear the ghost trap and the proton gun hanging on either side of the proton back start to vibrate and rattle as they knocked into each other on their loose hooks.

A light, cold gust then issued through the maze of crates, he could hear something. It was soft at first, but started to steadily grow in intensity. It sounded like a very odd wheeze and groan of a breathing creature in agony, it echoed around the warehouse and sounded very distant yet it grew in intensity until, it suddenly stopped. The gust died down and everything ceased rattling.

Egon looked back down at his P.K.E. the anomaly's signal had now become a constant, a stable wave as if it had just decided it wanted to exist but it was still an odd signal because though the wavelength and amplitude were now constant the frequency of the wave was still shifting constantly, from high frequency to low frequency, high to low, high to low very rapidly as if the thing creating it was breathing.

"Hey, did anyone feel that?" said Ray over their walkie-talkies

"You mean the gust of a hurricane racing through the building, yeah I felt it and heard it" Winston said "What kind of ghost makes a sound like that? It sounded more like an engine."

"Any idea's Egon?" Ray asked, though Egon was focusing on the odd readings, he snatched up his walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke very quickly "I don't know"

"That's how many 'I don't knows' in one day?" Peter's voice crackled "Is our old boy wearing down?"

Egon ignored him as he slowly walked deeper into the darkness, his face lit only by the glow of the P.K.E. screen. He'd switched the view so he could see everything again and so far he didn't appear to be in any immediate danger, so he allowed his curiosity to lead him closer and closer towards the source of the odd signal.

Squelch, squelch went his boots as he stood in something. He stopped for a moment, picked up his flash light from his belt and flicked it on, pointing it down he found he was standing in what looked like spilt milk on the floor. But as he lifted his left boot he could see this stuff was very, very thick, it clung to his boot with long thin strands extending down from his sole back into the thick liquid.

He took a few steps back out of the puddle and knelt down to examine the liquid more closely. He held up his P.K.E. and tried to get a reading. The screen suddenly blinked and became scrambled as it tried to take in its P.K.E. signature. Slightly confused at this Egon moved the meter away from the puddle of, what he guessed was ectoplasmic slime and the meter returned to full working order, but when he moved the meter back over the pale looking slime his P.K.E. meter went haywire again. It was behaving like a TV screen when static builds up cause's interference.

He clipped the meter away onto his belt and took out a sample tube from his pocket. He carefully scooped some of this curious substance into it and capped it with a cork before replacing it into his pocket again.

"Hey guys" said Winston's concerned voice "You remember you said to report anything unusual?"

"Yeah" said Ray's voice.

"I've found something unusual" Winston replied.

"What is it?" Egon asked into his walkie-talkie

"It's a box, a tall blue box" Winston said, Egon sighed, for a moment he thought it was something important "A blue box with white glowing windows set into it and what looks like a lamp on the top." Winston added.

"Can you describe it in greater detail?" Egon asked, a box was a usual thing to find in a warehouse, but a blue one with glowing windows set into it?

"It's big, big enough to fit maybe three people inside and it..." his voice paused "...I've just felt it, there's some sort of vibration coming from it"

"I'm getting some bad vibrations here as well" Peter quipped

"Wait, there's writing above the windows" Winston said

"What does it look like?" Egon asked "Sumerian, Babylonian?"

"It's English" Winston said, "You're not going to believe this, it says 'Police Box'"

A low hum suddenly caught Egons attention, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere very, very close.

"Maintain radio silence" he whispered into his walkie-talkie "I think there's something here with me" and with that he turned his radio off to stop chatter from alerting what was ahead of him. He summarised that it might be very dangerous to walk through the slime puddle, because slime like this was responsible for countless accidents and 'object possession' around Manhattan ever since the Vigo the Carpathian incident. But this slime seemed completely inert and harmless.

He drew his proton blaster and activated it, it came to life with a Ka-chuuuuu, and Egon slowly inched his way closer to the low humming noise.

As he rounded a corner he found the source of the noise. It was a black square like device tilted at an odd angle as it sat on top of a tripod. It had what looked like several radio antennas extending from the top of it and from underneath was a small mussel which emitted a very visible red laser beam which hit the slime puddle and was blinking on and off rapidly. It hummed and bleeped to itself as it did this, whatever it was doing. From the back of it snaked a cable which disappeared around another corner or crates.

As Egon approached the odd looking contraption he noticed a panama style hat hanging from one of the radio antennas like it was a hat stand.

The other side of the box appeared to have an array of controls and switches that he could not guess the function of. There was also a wide screen which appeared to be providing a stream of data and a collection of waveforms, this was a similar display to his P.K.E. meter. In fact, as he pulled his own meter out to compare the devices he found it was exactly like his P.K.E. it was providing exactly same sort of readout, only this larger looking one seemed to picking up dozens more signals then his P.K.E. all of which were rushing past its screen so fast Egon wasn't even able to take them in.

He guessed from the laser beam shooting out from the underside at the slime puddle that it was examining that. But as Egon again tried to analyse the puddle using his own P.K.E. it went haywire and stopped working, yet somehow this 'other P.K.E. device' was picking up the signals his handheld version couldn't. This concerned Egon because the secrets of their equipment had never been published, so how come he's found another, more advanced he had to admit, version of the P.K.E.?

He reached out to adjust one of the controls on it when someone lightly slapped his hand away as if he was a child about to touch something he wasn't supposed to.

"Do you mind" said a voice.

Egon jumped back and yelped a little at the figure before him who he didn't heard approach him. The little man didn't seem concerned by Egon's presence as he leaned over the device and made his own adjustments.

"This is a very sophisticated piece of machinery" the little man said in a voice which had an English accent with a Scottish tinge to it.

He was quite a short man, about 45 years old Egon reckoned, his hair was brown, long, wild and receding from his forehead giving him an Einstein type look about him. He wore a light dull brown tweed jacket with a bright red waist coat and silver pocket watch, white shirt and black tie, dark tweed trousers and a pair of battered brown and white spectator shoes.

The man took the hat from the top of the box, spun it over in his hands before placing it on his head and turning to face Egon, an enigmatic smile on his face which for some reason gave Egon the impression he was looking at a wizard from a fairytale or something like that. He pushed the absurd thought to the back of his mind.

"Now, Mr. Spengler" he said, how did he know his name? But Egon then remembered all four of the Ghostbusters had their surnames on breast of their boiler suits. "Or do you prefer Egon?" That sentence flushed that theory away. "Now I imagine you have quite a few questions in mind, I think. None of which I can answer at the moment, but one."

He held out his right hand to shake Egons while simultaneously he raised his hat in greeting with his left. "How do you do?" he said smiling "I'm the Doctor"

* * *

**To be continued...**

* * *

**Author's notes:** This is the 7th Doctor from the TV movie who was nearing the end of his current incarnation, which is why his attire differs from how he was in the TV series.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Winston's flashlight cut through the gloom and highlighted the odd blue box he'd found. It was standing awkwardly at an angle to the two walls of crates as if it had been dumped there without a care that it took up nearly the entire the path. It almost blocked his advance forward if it wasn't for a small gap he thought he could squeeze through.

He placed his hand on it, the material it was made from felt strange it felt sleek like polished wood but also very rough like rusted metal and through Winstons fingertips he could feel a very faint vibration from deep inside the blue box.

The box was tall and wide, say about one and a half the size of an ordinary phone booth and able to hold about three people at a time. He could only see two sides of the box from his position but each side was pitted with six equally spaced rectangular panels split into three rows of two. Above the row of three panels was a pair of framed windows which seemed to emit a strange white glow from beyond them. This pattern was repeated on all sides of the box that he could see and it was crowned with a large angular roof with black sign set low down into it which had in glowing white letters the words 'POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX' whatever that meant, and topping it off on the top centre of the roof of this odd box was a brass frame containing a glass lamp which was unlit.

Winston realised there was something odd about this box from the start because, though as he looked at it he knew instantly that it didn't belong here, the more he looked at it... he couldn't really describe what he was feeling, the box's very angular shape did give it a certain sense of presence and mystery but it was as if the box was trying to alter his perceptions, to make him accept that this box did belong here and that he should just ignore it, an illusion which seemed to keep fading in and out in his mind because the blue box stood out like a sore thumb in this environment.

Winston decided to try to push past it to the other side through the small gap left between it and the crates, but as he tried to move through the gap he realised it was much too narrow for him, or him and his proton pack combined.

He backed out of the narrow opening, removed his pack, this was risky he realised but necessary if he was to advance forward. Gingerly he slid himself between the odd box and the crates and back into the open, quickly pulling his pack through behind him before firmly putting his arms back through the loops of the pack and securing it to his back again.

He turned to look at the box again, one side of it was slightly different to the other three. The side which faced the wall he'd squeezed between to get through had the same panelled pattern but the two halves appeared to be divided into two doors, one on each side, with a dull silver handle screwed onto the right door, from his point of view. There was a small Yale style lock fitted to the right door and on the boxes left hand side was a plaque or another sign set into the panel below the window, bordered and with white writing on a blue background. On the left hand side of this sign sat a second dull silver handle which looked like its use was not for opening the left door.

Winston shone his flashlight onto the plaque so he could get a better look at what the sign said, it read.

POLICE TELEPHONE

FREE

FOR USE OF PUBLIC

ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE

OBTAINABLE IMMEDIATELY

OFFICERS AND CARS RESPOND TO

URGENT CALLS

PULL TO OPEN

He didn't know if this was wise or not but Winston took the handle of the right door in his empty hand and felt the slight vibration the box seemed to emit from deep inside it. He gently pulled on the door but it remained firmly closed, he pulled again harder this time and still the box remained shut and was obviously locked. Defeated he tried the other handle, the one attached to the small sign and this time he had some luck, with a quiet click the left door didn't open but the panel the handle was attached to did. It swung out on hinges revealing a small black space inside and sitting in it was an old fashioned black telephone. It was similar in design to the red style ones you'd see the President use in movies to contact important people, but this one was painted jet black and gleamed in his torch light.

Was this thing just a stupid phone booth? Winston asked himself, if it was he was wasting his time investigating it. He gently replaced the panel and it clicked as it closed and he turned around to look further down the corridor. So far he had not come across any ghosts or ghouls of any sort. This concerned him a little because when they didn't attack as soon as they saw you it usually meant 'they' were up to something, perhaps a trap or maybe they were going to jump out and try to spook him, they liked doing that, scaring people.

The low whine of the proton pack's particle accelerator in the deadly silence reassured him that he could defend himself if they did have a trap prepared but he was still worried, because ghosts usually didn't wait this long before attacking.

His flashlight caught something gleaming on the hard concrete floor. Slowly Winston approached it and as he did he felt the air become slightly colder, nothing to do with him the temperature just felt like it was dropping. There was a large puddle of what looked like milk that had started to curdle in the middle of the path and there was more of it flooding back along theis path. He took a few steps forward to take a closer look at the stuff but stopped before he actually stepped in it. His nostrils got the slight whiff of something rank, like stale eggs and rotting meat. He picked up his walkie-talkie from his belt.

"Hey guys, I think I've hit slime" he said, but all he got in return was the quiet hiss of static. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch the stuff because it was probably a very bad idea. He remembered the last time he'd been covered in slime that looked like this before and it hadn't been a pleasant experience, mostly for those around him because it had inflamed his anger, but this stuff didn't look like the bubble gum pink mood slime from a few years back, it was much, much paler as if the mood slime had gone past its sell by date.

He let the circle of light his flashlight emitted follow the edges of where the floor disappeared and this slime puddle started, it circled back around him and appeared to be snaking towards that blue box. Winston stood up and walked towards the box again and noticed something odd. A slime trail was already halfway up the box, but when Winston had last looked at the box there was no slime on it. As he watched, it was as if the slime was alive, it snaked its way slowly across its doors and sank itself into the boxes keyhole.

There came an almightily flash and a loud howl of an animal in its death throes, the slime trail arced outwards and upwards without breaking its strands as an electrical current rushed through it from the keyhole it had tried to enter. The box just stood there impassive as the slime strand seemed to be receiving the entire electrical output of the whole of Manhattan in one go. There was a snap and a hiss as the slime trail was blown back out of the boxes keyhole and blasted off the box completely before it came to a sloppy landing across the floor.

Winston had seen many strange things in his career as a Ghostbuster but never something so unusual, why did that slime trail want to get into a phone booth anyway? But he had the answer in his mind already. The large electrical discharge that the slime trail received, it was as if the box was protecting itself, as if it was part of a defensive mechanism to prevent it getting in, this put serious doubts in Winston's mind that this blue box was anything but a phone booth.

A loud ringing caught his ears, it hung in the air for a second before fading out, silence for a second, then it came again, hung in the air and faded out again. It was slightly muffled but he knew it was, the sound of a telephone waiting to be picked up and the ringing came again and Winston turned back to look at the so called Police Box as the ringing died before it came again. He walked slowly to the box, proton gun ready to fire in case anything happened and gently reopened the side panel containing the black telephone and the ringing became much, much clearer.

Gingerly he reached out and picked up the receiver and gently raised it to his ear.

"Hello" he said into the phone, no reply came "Hello" he repeated again but still no reply, no spoken reply anyway but as he listened intently to the phone he could hear a strange type of noise. It was faint as if it was off in the distance and sounded like gently flowing energy, mixed with a slight breeze of wind and a crackling noise which was similar to the sound of concrete cracking under stress.

He'd heard that noise somewhere before but he couldn't for the life of him remember where, it was something distant locked into the back of his head but the noise meant something to him.

"He is returning" said a voice at last taking Winston by surprise.

"Hello" Winston said into the phone

"He is returning" the voice repeated, it was female and sounded like she was speaking in a monotone like she was a recording. Was she trying to warn him of something, or someone, or was this just another ghostly tactic to scare him?

"Who is this?" Winston asked the voice, no reply at first. For a moment Winston let his senses come back and take in the small phone in this boxes side panel. His eyes widened slightly when he noticed a wire that appeared to snake from the back of the phone into the panel, or it should've, the cord wasn't connected to anything at all, yet it was working.

"He is returning" the voice suddenly repeated again

"Who is retur..." but he never got to finish the sentence when he heard the click of the receiver at the other end being placed down. He removed the receiver from his ear for a moment and looked at it with a mixture of curiosity, confusion and worry. A short stream of that milk coloured slime suddenly erupted from the boxes keyhole as if the box itself was spitting it out, Winston took a step back to avoid getting it on his clothes and the slime landed back into the puddle on the floor with a splat.

Winston looked at where the slime had landed, clearly confused about the whole situation before turning his attention back to the silent phone in his hand. He gently placed it back down on the receiver before picking it back up again and raising it to his ear. He heard nothing, not even the single tone that signified a connection to a phone network. He tried to dial a number for headquarters but as he stuck his finger into the rotor and tried to turn the dial he found he couldn't, it was jammed in place, in fact it was stuck to the phone itself as if the entire thing had been moulded out of one piece of plastic that was never intended to work as a real phone. Yet the receiver worked well enough for someone to contact him unless it was a one way line. Confused at this he set the phone back down in its cradle and gently closed the panel on the Police Box.

He turned and regarded the slime puddle again, it just sat there completely immobile and silent, dead. Winston picked up his walkie-talkie and tried to make contact with the others but he heard nothing but the gentle hiss of static again.

It was either go through the Slime puddle or go back and for a moment Winston considered going back the way he'd come because walking through this slime puddle couldn't be good for his health, or his dry cleaning, but that was before he noticed foot prints in the thick curdling slime. There was someone else in here with them.

There were two pairs of foot prints in the slime, one set was small and narrow like office shoes, the other prints were large and wide like a pair of boots. Winston for a moment considered if this was a fake trail put up by ghosts so he would follow them into a trap, but Winston's fear was pushed aside as he decided to go on. He drew his proton gun from his back and slowly followed the prints around a corner and deeper into the warehouse.

* * *

Egon looked at this strange character, who stood before him, with a strange sense of suspicion and curiosity. He lifted his P.K.E. meter and scanned the little man who just stood there, hand held out waiting to shake Egons but retracted it when Egon didn't take it and instead started scanning him with the P.K.E.

"Is that your way of saying hello?" the Doctor said a smile crossing his face.

There was no P.K.E. signature coming from him so he wasn't a ghost but the man seemed to have a strange aura about him that Egon just couldn't place or measure with the P.K.E. He put this ridicules thought to the back of his mind with all the others.

"Sir..." Egon said being polite, but the short man cut across him.

"Doctor" he corrected.

"Doctor..." Egon echoed "Doctor...who?"

"You'd be surprised how often I get asked that?" the Doctor said with slight humour and smiling but didn't answer the question.

"Doctor..." Egon decided to just call him that "... it's dangerous in here, there are several psycho kinetic entities in this building that are very hostile, I think you might want to consider leaving the premises."

"Not all psycho kinetic entities are hostile you know" the Doctor said as if he knew something in this field of science "Some of my best friends have been mere thought patters or imprints left in the fabric of space and time."

"Huh?" Egon muttered, what was he talking about? "I don't think you understand the situation, Doctor" but the little man appeared to be ignoring him as he had returned to adjusting the controls of his odd contraption. Egon decided to be a little more direct and speak in 'lay language' as Peter called it "There are several disturbed spirits and ghosts in this building and..."

"Ghosts?" the Doctor asked seriously as if he'd finally grasped the danger he was in and he turned around to regard Egon, but the curious look on his face did not have a hint of concern on it at all "Is that what you call them?" he said as if the idea of ghosts was ridicules. His machine, the advanced looking P.K.E. bleeped and he returned to it again. "Really Egon Spengler, as a scientist you should know ghosts in the classical sense of the word don't really exist."

"I'm used to the sceptics" Egon said, "But I really think you should..."

"Oh, no, no, no, no..." the Doctor cut across him gently "Don't misunderstand me, there are plenty of strange unexplained phenomenon" he adjusted the controls of his machine "Inter-dimensional rifts, openings in the fabric of reality, creatures from alternative dimensions, void creatures, etc, etc. It's a big universe and its entirely understandable Egon that you would mistakenly classify these creatures as 'ghosts'"

Egon was going to ask him how come he knew his full name when what the Doctor had said to him finally registered.

Wrongly classify? What did he mean by wrongly classify? They were ghost, simple as that how else could you classify them?

He remained speechless because he'd never been spoken to like that before, as if he were a child or a man of inferior intellect. Actually he met people like that all the time, they were arrogant and were often incredulous towards Egon, but this man was different, he didn't become moody or arrogant when he claimed the ghosts didn't exist, he sounded more like they were discussing this misunderstanding over a cup of tea and nor did the Doctor sound like he was patronising him. The Doctor also spoke with the air of a well educated man who had travelled far and wide and had seen far weirder things in his life.

Once or twice Egon had witnessed full torso, human manifestations, what he would've classified as 'classical ghosts' so of course this man was wrong, ghosts did exist and Egon knew it because he's interacted with them, he was just another sceptic. _But he didn't say ghosts didn't exist_, Egon thought to himself_ only that I wrongly classified them._

He'd never before been left speechless by someone in this life. Forgetting that he was supposed to be hunting several ghosts he asked this odd Doctor. "If they're not ghosts then what would you call them?"

"Hmm?" the Doctor mumbled as he pulled out an odd looking silver device from his pocket with a red circular tip and pressed it to the side of the device, a loud whirling noise came from the silver tube when he pressed his thumb down on the shaft and an entire section slid down the device. It was only after he did this odd task that he stood and answered Egons question while adjusting the antenna's sticking out of the box. "I don't know, but there are many things they could be. Void creatures, physical projections and manifestations of one's disturbed subconscious mind, inter-dimensional creatures, psychic imprints left over from a person's troubled subconscious."

"Ah ha!" Egon said in triumph "But that's exactly what a ghost is" he didn't know why he felt the need to justify the existence of ghosts to this man, but for some reason he couldn't work out it something about this man just made it important to him.

The Doctor stopped what he was doing for a moment and looked at Egon with a pitiful look in his eyes that he was fighting a lost cause. He left his machine for a moment again and began to explain, mining what he was trying to explain with his hands showing a few crude example.

"No, no, no" he said as if he was a college professor trying to explain a simple concept to a student "A ghost is the soul of a person remaining on earth and doomed to repeat itself" he explained "a psychic imprint is just a shadow of the departed persons troubled mind which has reconstructed its physical form from the minds neurological map, but the copy often isn't perfect which is why you get vanishing legs or wisps' of vapour where the legs would normally be, though on rare occasions a full body print is achieved. They are just like foot prints on the beach, an imprint in space/time..." The Doctor spoke at such a rate Egon was having trouble keeping up but he got the gist of it "...there is a difference." The Doctor added.

Egon listened intently but for some reason part of his mind refused to take it in, he was of course, though it might be arrogant of him to think so, the lead scientist in psychic research for the whole world since Ghostbusters was established, and the Doctor sounded like he was claiming even greater knowledge then he had. Who on earth was he?

The Doctor looked satisfied that Egon had understood him and went back to operating his machine. He took out a small, silver pocket watch from his waist coat pocket, opened it up and examined it before replacing it back in his pocket, "Two minutes" he muttered to himself as he watched the whirling waveforms on the machines screen.

"What exactly is that device?" Egon decided to ask at last, the P.K.E. meter still in his left hand.

"Well..." the Doctor said not taking his eyes off the screen "...in principle it's exactly the same device as the one you've got there..." he took his eyes off the screen momentarily and nodded at Egon's smaller P.K.E. meter. "...only much more advanced and a little less crude." He half muttered to himself, not in offence just in a matter-of-fact kind of way as he began adjusting the rabbit ear like antenna on the top of the square device.

He roughly smacked the device with the flat of his hand like you would an old TV set and adjusted the rabbit ears again, but he sighed, this obviously had not had the desired effect. He then turned to Egon and the small mans gaze fell to Egon's P.K.E. meter that was still whirling as it picked up readings in his left hand.

"Would you mind turning that off?" the Doctor asked pointing at it "Only it's interfering with my instruments."

* * *

Boy this place was dark, Ray thought as he and Peter gingerly walked through the narrow corridors and passages the large walls of crates formed. Ray cast his flashlight off into the distance, it seemed like this place went on forever.

With each step they took, their heavy boots echoed loudly around them, it was the only sound they could hear apart from the jangling of their equipment, their own breathing and the whirling of the particle accelerators.

As Ray held his flashlight in one hand and proton gun in the other he suddenly thought what a good idea it would've been to fit a flashlight to the muzzle of the proton gun. This would allow his hands to be free to use the weapon when necessary. He'll have to discuss his idea with Egon when this was over, he thought and was genuinely surprised they'd never thought this before now.

As they continued onward Ray then realised the temperature was dropping around them, and with each step it steadily got colder and colder.

"I have a bad feeling about this" Peter said, then he smiled "I've always wanted to say that"

They waited for a few moments expecting what Egon called an 'Event' to occur when the spirit in question would cause something unnatural to happen in the surroundings but as they waited, the whirl of their proton packs filling the silent space, nothing happened.

"Come on out!" Ray called "It's the Ghostbusters!"

"Great idea Ray" Peter said sarcastically "Just hold on a sec while I paint a bull's-eye on my face"

"Sorry Peter" Ray said embarrassed. Ray was getting impatient, what were the ghosts doing in here? Ray stopped and looked around for any hint of an apparition, strange white mists, slime trails, anything that might show a ghost was close. But he could see nothing.

Ray picked up an odd looking device from his belt that resembled a pair of welding goggles, they were called Ecto-goggles devices that allowed the wearer to see invisible ghosts much clearer and unlike Egon's P.K.E. which was designed to pick up and gather ecto-readings, the goggles can pick up unseen slime and ectoplasmic trails and make them visible as well as providing some useful information such as P.K.E. density and proximity, but not as much data as the P.K.E. He slid the goggles over his eyes and at first all he could see was the normal surroundings because they weren't turned on. Along the sides of his vision were small indicators telling him things like the P.K.E. density and proximity, all were reading zero and everything appeared normal before he turned them on, then any form of ectoplasm became visible.

His mouth dropped open a little. What he saw didn't make sense. The entire corridor looked like it sat in a dense fog; they were completely surrounded by ectoplasm on all sides! In shock Ray dropped his flashlight and held his proton gun in both hands and waited for an attack, ectoplasm this dense could easily hide a wandering spirit but as he watched nothing appeared to be coming out of the dense ectoplasmic fog, at all.

Something else that was also odd, though the Ecto-goggles were allowing him to see this ectoplasm, according the readings on the edges of the goggles vision it wasn't ectoplasm. It was clearly there according to the goggles but there was just no reading from it. Was it even ectoplasm, was it a type they'd never encountered before? Or was it something else?

"What's up Ray?" Peter asked unconcerned "I haven't see you this jumpy since I told the Spud there was a Snickers in your sooOOOOCKKKKS!" he bellowed.

Ray whirled around, Peter had gone, just vanished, simply vanished. Ray did a full three sixty and still no sign of him.

"Okay Peter this isn't funny" Ray said with a little hint of concern in his voice. He tightened his grip on his proton gun as he gingerly backed away closer to one of the crates ready to blast anything that should show its ugly face. A hand landed on his left shoulder and in his panic he pressed the activation trigger for the proton gun.

A long, waving lance of red and yellow light shot out from the end of his proton gun and fired into the air, severing the cables that held up a long neon light on the ceiling of the warehouse. It fell down, impacted the side of a crate and landed on the concrete floor with a crash, smashing the tube on the inside.

Ray then spun around to face the owner of that hand that grabbed him.

"Nice" said Peters voice "Remind me never to ask you to redecorate my apartment"

"Peter!" Ray said releasing his trigger finger from the activation switch and pushing his Ecto-goggles off his eyes so they were over his forehead, "I could've blasted you to smithereens"

Peter looked down at the fallen light and smiled "Lucky me you're a terrible shot"

It was then Ray noticed the odd thing Peter was doing, he was standing half in and half out of a crate, not an open crate through the walls of a crate like he was a ghost. For a second Ray thought this might be a ghost trick but decided it wasn't for two reasons, one, why would a ghost give himself away so easily and two, when, out of curiosity he reached forward to feel the surface of the crate Peter was standing in, he saw his hand sink into the crate as if it wasn't even there.

"How are you doing that?" Ray asked

"I don't know, I just leaned against this crate and I fell straight through it" Peter rubbed the side of his head where Ray guessed he had landed.

"Wow" Ray said as a million possibilities ran through his head, he pulled down his Ecto-goggles and looked at the wall Peter was standing half in half out of. With the Ecto-goggles on he could only just see it, a transparent wall of a crate only half there and half not there faded against whatever was behind it. "Wow!" Ray uttered again "This is fantastic, it's a psychic illusion"

"Neat party trick" Peter commented "reminds me of the time I saw a magician vanish in a clear glass cabinet"

"This is no magic trick Peter" Ray said as he passed through the transparent wall to the other side, and after a moment Peter followed him "Somehow these ghosts have either warped the fabric of reality making us think there's another crate here, or somehow they've altered our minds, our perceptions so we can't see it."

"As I said, neat party trick"

The other side of the crate was actually another very long corridor that vanished into darkness, but whatever it lead it was somewhere the ghosts didn't want them to go. So of course Ray was all too keen to disappoint them as he continued on into the darkness a little spring of excitement in his step and Peter following a short distance behind.

Ray's ecto-goggles picking up the dense ectoplasmic fog again and Ray started explaining what he was seeing to Peter and described that it might be a smoke screen so the ghosts can attack without being seen.

"Got any more cheery thoughts?" Peter had said.

They'd been in here for half an hour and still no sign of a ghost but the evidence was here, there were ghosts in this building and Egon's P.K.E. meter picked them up, now Ray's goggles were picking up masses of ectoplasm in the fog but he couldn't get a reading from it. Though he could see very little through them Ray kept the Ecto-goggles firmly over his eyes in case a ghost did jump out he'd be able to see it. Peter would just have to hope the ghosts appeared before him to give him a fighting chance.

Ray couldn't remember the last time they'd been on a bust where they had to actually hunt the ghosts down like this, usually they were mischievous, flying here and there throwing things, breaking things sliming people, generally just being a pain to everyone around them. But right now it was almost as if they were hiding and as Ray watched the fog dancing across his vision another thought occurred to him. What was down here that the ghosts wanted to remain hidden?

* * *

Egon was going to write the Doctor off as just an eccentric and insane madman. What he was talking about sounded like science fiction rather than science fact but the one thing Egon could not deny was the strange P.K.E. device he was working on. It certainly looked more advanced and when he held up his P.K.E. the waveforms on its screen were perfectly matching the ones on the Doctors device, so it worked like a P.K.E.

Egon had done what the Doctor asked and switched off his P.K.E. he didn't know why he did it though, he needed it after all to hunt the ghosts but the Doctor seemed to engender a trusting nature of some sort, plus the Doctor was a mystery and Egon wanted to know more about him.

"Are you a psychic investigator?" Egon asked

"Well that's certainly what I'm doing at the moment" the Doctor said not taking his eyes off his device. Egon wondered for a second why he was playing the man of mystery when he decided to ask another question.

"What's your Ph.D in?" he asked

"Oh now that was a long time ago" the Doctor said raising his hand to his chin, a faraway tone to his voice "Practically everything"

"What do you mean 'everything?'"

"Exactly that, 'everything'" the Doctor said mysteriously.

Through the whine of his own proton pack and the noise made by the two P.K.E. meters Egon could hear something. Squelch, squelch, squelch, something was coming from behind them in the opposite direction he had come.

Egon reached behind his back and drew out his proton gun again, activated the wand and it came to life with a Ka-Chuuuuuu.

"You can put that away" the Doctor said still not taking his eyes off his device, "it's quite safe, it's one of your people" and sure enough, coming through the darkness, proton pack whirling and ready to fire was Winston.

"Winston?" Egon called, how had the Doctor known it wasn't a ghost or a demon or something?

"Egon" Winston said as he left the slime puddle his boots were trailing in and walked along the clean, solid concrete floor towards them "There's one freaky box back there you might want to take a look at"

"That would be mine" said the Doctor as he switched off his device, apparently finished with it.

"Who's this guy?" Winston asked Egon.

"I don't know" Egon said with a hint of suspicion in his voice as the Doctor turned around to face him, raised his hat and held out his hand.

"How do you do? I'm the Doctor" unsure Winston reached out and gently shook the Doctors waiting hand.

"Winston" he replied unsurely in greeting before turning his attention back to Egon "Hey Egon, have you seen all this slime everywhere?" Winston lifted up his boot to show the thin layer of slime that caked it.

"You've found more of it?" Egon asked pushing his glasses back up his nose after they had started sliding off.

"Yeah, back there" Winston motioned with a jerk of his thumb "It's like it's alive, it tried to get into that strange box"

"It did?" the Doctor said his eyes alight, almost in horror "What happened?"

Winston slightly taken aback just shrugged "It entered the keyhole, looked like it got the entire output of Manhattan, fired itself out and squelched away."

The Doctor looked relieved as he went back to his device, with one swift movement all the antennas retracted back into it, the screen went blank and it sank down onto its tripod hold. Now it just sat on the floor and looked like a dark box with a handle for carrying it. Thought it still had a long cable connected to it that snaked off it, running between Egon and Winston and went down an adjacent corridor and vanished into the darkness beyond.

"Something else weird happened" Winston said as he watched the Doctors machine pack itself away like a transformer "The box contained a telephone, it was ringing and when I picked it up and someone kept saying 'He is Returning'"

Egon listened to this intently, ghost had been known to use things like telephone, TV's and other communication devices to speak and scare people, but give a warning? Or was it a warning or just something to scare them? He noticed the Doctor twist around and look at them curiously when Winston mentioned the phone in the box was ringing. Did he have something to do with it? He had just said the box was his and the man didn't seem to make any sort of sense and refused to give a satisfactory account of himself and in Egon's experience whenever they meet people who did that they were usually up to no good.

Suddenly Egon's thoughts were interrupted by a loud, ear piercing, human scream which seemed to come from the corridor that the wire from the Doctor's machine snaked down, into the darkness.

* * *

**To Be Continued...**

* * *

**Author's notes:** The scenes between the Doctor and Egon were fun but surprisingly difficult to write, hopefully I've done both characters justice.

All reviews are welcome


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The next instant Egon and Winston were running down the corridor their equipment jangling on their backs as they followed the massive corridors of crates deeper into this maze. But they had to come to a stop when the corridor suddenly ended in a dead end with no other way through.

Winston was about to turn back when Egon grabbed his arm to prevent him. The thin faced scientists' eyes were staring straight ahead at another strange contraption set up near the crate the corridor abruptly ended in.

"What is it Egon?" Winston asked as they approached it. It looked like another box of wires on a tripod, only this one had some kind of emitter dish attached to the front of it, pointing at the crate wall. It was also humming very loudly and had a long cable snaking out the back of it, the same cable that was attached to the Doctors odd contraption, presumably at the other end.

"I don't know" Egon replied as he held up his P.K.E. at the contraption and the arms suddenly rose quiet high before lowering down rapidly. "But whatever it is, I think its interfering with the P.K.E."

"Who is that Doctor guy anyway?"Winston asked, "Friend of yours?"

"I don't know" Egon said again.

"Who does he work for?" Winston asked

"I don't know" Egon answered

"Why is he even here?" Winston asked but got the same answer. "I don't know"

"That's enough 'I don't know's to win an election" Winston jested dryly.

"I don't understand what's going on here" Egon said "The P.K.E. readings just don't make sense"

"It's not like you to not know stuff." Winston stated.

"Not knowing things is the first step on the route to discovery" said the Doctor from behind them. Winston hadn't heard him approach as he walked between them holding up his hat from his head in greeting as he did and... walked straight through the solid wall? What?

Winston turned to Egon for an explanation, but only received an equally mystified look from his college. A hand, the Doctor's hand, suddenly appeared through the wall and raised its index finger and beckoned them to follow him through the wall.

Egon and Winston looked at each other quizzically again wondering if they should do as this Doctor said. Egon, often the first to take a scientific leap of faith, cautiously stepped over to the wall, the wall that appeared very solid, placed his hand on it and appeared to be touching it. But as he put pressure on it his hand just disappeared through the wall as if it wasn't really there. Egon pulled his hand out again probably in case something snapped it off and looked to Winston.

"I think it's safe." Egon said before stepping through the wall in one go.

Winston was about to follow when his foot landed on something much more solid. He looked down at his foot and saw he was standing on a monkey wrench and a screwdriver that had just been left there on the floor in a position as if they had just been dropped in a panic like whoever was here had just ran, or was taken.

Winston intended to bend down to inspect the tools but then remembered that Egon and the Doctor would be waiting on the other side, that was assuming this wasn't any kind of ambush.

With his proton wand still in his hand, ready for any trouble, Winston gingerly walked through the wall. It was a peculiar sensation, walking into a wall and expecting to hit it only to pass straight through it, it felt cold as if he was passing through a wall of ice but the atmosphere soon warmed up as he stepped out through the other side.

Egon and the Doctor were standing there waiting for him as he emerged. He momentarily looked back and saw the wall that he had just walked through, only it was slightly transparent and Winston could see the corridor continue on with that odd contraption just a little further away from the fake wall.

"What is it, a hologram?" Winston asked.

"Oh, nothing too fanciful" the Doctor commented holding the left lapel of his tweed jacket in his hand, he pointed his umbrella at it. Wait, where did he get that umbrella from? "On a higher level it's more like an infusion of highly sensitive exotic particles that interfere with the Higgs field allowing it to exist in multiple states on the multi-versal plane"

And Winston thought Egon spoke in techno babble. He turned to Egon who just kept looking on at the Doctor with an almost shocked expression in his eyes. "That's even more fanciful then Winston's own theory." The Ghostbuster said

"Maybe from your point of view." The Doctor said "Try walking back through it" he nodded at the ghostly image of the wall, and Winston did as instructed, he tried to walk back through it and flattened his nose as he tried walked right into a solid wall of wood. He stepped back and felt his nose to make sure it wasn't broken.

"What the heck? We just walked through that" Winston said. Egon stepped up to the wall and gently knocked on it. It was indeed solid.

"Try to see it as variable state matter" the Doctor said smiling as he pulled out something from his coat pocket. It looked like a small, silver box with a radio aerial sticking out of the top of it. The short Scottishman looked down at the box and began walking in a particular direction away from the wall and themselves. Egon and Winston made to follow this strange little man because he seemed to have some idea of what was going on here.

"Why do I feel like a dog being lead into a Korean restaurant?" Winston asked holding his proton weapon tightly in his grasp.

"I guess probably because we are" Egon said gazing back at his P.K.E. again "Metaphorically speaking of course."

Winston took one last look over his shoulder at the translucent wall he'd walked through and could swear he saw someone on the other side disappearing back into the shadows when he looked.

* * *

Ray's excitement was almost reaching breaking point. He never got tired of moments like these. They were still excitingly leaping into the unknown to see what they can find. What was the old saying? 'The thrill is in the chase, never in the capture' it was certainly true, but there was satisfaction in the capture or to Ray there was. It was a pity the others didn't share his sense of adventure. Egon only saw things mechanically, Winston did it because it was in the job description but did get a kick out of capturing ghosts, and Peter only seemed to endure this for the money and publicity. Sometimes he wished they could employ someone with his sense of adventure, but sadly they could not afford extra help.

Something squelched under Ray's foot. Something Ray could feel was cold to the touch despite him wearing thick boots. Ray looked down and saw what at first he thought was spilt glue that hadn't set, but Ray got what felt like a sixth sense about it. It was either that or the strange way it began to glow a pale pink colour for a brief moment that made him sense something was odd about it.

Ray tried to raise his foot and he felt resistance pulling it back down like it really was glue and the soul of his boots slowly peeled off the floor.

Peter gently tried his best to step over the puddle but because of the size of it, it was hard to avoid. Peter took one step in it and slipped the moment his foot made contact with the floor. He fell onto his back the impact of which kicked up a large amount of the slime that rained back down on top of him.

"Slime" Peter spat some away from his lip as he got up "Why does it always have to be slime?"

"That's incredible!" Ray exclaimed "This substance must be Polymorphic!"

"Old Poly's let herself go hasn't she?" Peter half joked, half spat as he sat in the puddle.

"No Peter, 'Polymorphic'" Peter said glancing at Peter before kneeling down to focus his attention on the slime covering him. "It can shift it's physical properties. When I stepped in it, it was like an adhesive, when you stepped in it, it acted like a lubricant."

"Terrific" Peter moaned lowly as he slowly and carefully got to his feet. "Slime with a million and one uses."

"We should get a sample" Ray said reaching into the pocket of his boiler suit and taking a small sample vial from it. "Egon will want to analyse it."

"Yeah, if there's one thing we don't have enough of down at HQ its slime." Peter hissed trying to remove a stubborn blob that had landed on his face.

Ray scooped up a small amount of substance in the vial, capped it and put it back in his pocket.

The space around them suddenly became very, very cold. An 'event' was imminent, Ray could feel it and experience had obviously eventually taught Peter the same lessons because they both tightly gripped their proton wands and readied themselves to blast anything that moved, or floated. Listening intently they heard nothing for a long while as they walked except the crunch of their boots and the whine of their equipment. Then suddenly they heard it, a loud, ear piercing scream from ahead.

Leaping into action Peter and Ray raced down the rest of the corridor until the passageway made of large packing crates opened up into a much larger space about the size of an average garage that reached right up to the tall ceiling. In the middle of the floor was a large blob of this white slime that began to glow a dull pink. It wasn't just the floor that the slime covered, it was also covering the walls and was even dripping from the ceiling, from which was flying about a dozen spectres and ghouls in a circle.

"Is it just me or do the ghosts actually look... frightened?" Ray asked. He'd never tried to read a ghosts' features or body language before but it did look like the ghosts were scared of something.

"Hey, we're like the ghost cops of the spirit world. They see us coming, they start running" Peter said as he raised his proton blaster into the air. A long lance of dancing light flashed out from the mussel of the proton gun, catching one of the ghosts, a blobby looking creature like Slimer but bright purple. The proton stream however didn't snag it as it was supposed to instead the force of the impact sent the ghost slamming into the slime covering the wall. Then came another ear piercing scream, it was coming from the ghost, screams of utter terror, the sort of scream you make when you feel your life was in danger. The ghost reached out for its fellows to help it but the purple blob received no help from its fellow spirits, its yellow eyes rolled down to the two Ghostbusters with an almost pleading look as the white slime began to smother it, like it was trying to suffocate or drowned the roaming vapour. It sank deeper into it until only its arms were hanging out but soon they fell limp like the ghost was dead, even though it was already dead. It's arms slowly sank into the slime and vanished.

"Okay" Peter sceptically as if denying what his eyes have just shown him. "What was that?"

"I don't know." Ray admitted "But it looks like theses ghosts are scared of this slime stuff."

"Ghosts afraid of slime?" Peter said with scepticism, "That's like a zombie being scared to eat brains."

"Zombies don't eat brain's Peter" Ray explained "They rip you apart, tear out your organs and eat them indiscriminately."

"I'll remember to turn down an invite to dinner by one" Peter said coolly and dryly.

With his thick gloves on Ray scooped up a handful of the white slime and cocked his arm back ready to throw it up at the ghosts as an experiment. "If they scatter when they see this coming then they must be afraid of the slime!" His arm was about to chuck it when he felt something coiling around his throwing arm preventing him from throwing it very far, it just plopped back into the slime puddle.

Ray turned in panic to see what had him by the arm. It was an umbrella head? An umbrella head in the shape of a large question mark, holding onto it was a short man with long, wavy hair a tweed jacket and a red waist coat with a hat of a design Ray had never seen before, the closest Ray could describe it was a kind of sun hat he guessed, but it wasn't that kind of design.

"One thing you never want to do with corrosive protoplasma." The man said in an English accent that had a slight Scottish tinge to it. "and that's throw it around like it's play dough." He released Rays arm.

"Sir!" Ray said once he got over the initial surprise of finding someone in here with them "This place is dangerous, you should leave."

"Yeah, before it gets messy" Peter said as he wiped more slime he'd found left in his hair.

"That is very kind of you" the elderly looking man said "But I can guarantee out of the five here, you're the most in danger."

The man hung the hook of the umbrella on his arm as he produced a strange looking device from his coat pocket, a silver box with a little antenna on it. If Ray didn't know better he'd say it was a sort of P.K.E. meter, what Ray meant by 'if he didn't know better' was that he knew full well that the only organisation with the plans to build a P.K.E. meter was Ghostbusters.

He slotted a small, extendable, telescopic probe from the top of his machine, extended it out to its full length and dipped it into the mass of slime and his instrument clearly produced some kind of readout that Ray couldn't see from his angle.

"Who are you?" Ray asked curiously.

"Hmm?" the man said looking at Ray as if the elderly man recognised him. Duh! What was he thinking, he was Ray Stanz, Ghostbuster nearly every kid in town knew who he was. "Just see me as an external specialist, let's say your advanced scientific advisor for now." He said putting the emphasis on 'advanced'.

"Advanced Scientific Advisor?" Egon asked almost insulted as he emerged from among a tall collection of packing crates, Winston just behind him.

"Clearly you gentlemen have no idea what you're dealing with." The Englishman said his tone growing slightly more serious.

"What are we dealing with" Ray asked quietly of the Doctor waiting for either a mysterious or ominous reply.

"I don't know" the man shrugged causally. Ray thought it was odd that they had several moaning spectres floating around overhead and this man didn't even bat an eyelid at them.

"Doctor" Egon called him and opened his mouth to say more, but the man, the Doctor cut him off.

"Ah!" he cried suddenly as he glanced down at his machine "Protoplasm with high positron and electron lattice content all spinning in perfect harmony, each signal cancelling each other out thereby giving no identifiable mass or atomic structure."

All eyes turned to Egon for a translation, but their boy genius looked as clueless as they did. The Doctor lifted up his probe from the slime, the end was bending and dissolving as they spoke. "Also has a high corrosive index." The Doctor decided.

"What you described is impossible!" Egon suddenly said. "Electrons and positrons are opposites of each other, they destroy each other producing energy. There's no such thing as an electron/positron lattice."

"Really Dr. Spengler" he said the word doctor as if the title was laughable, "Have you ever seen an electron/positron lattice? Or seen evidence for it?"

"You can't find evidence for them because they don't exist!" Egon argued. The Doctor smiled and pointed his umbrella up at the several terrified looking ghosts "And yet your laws of science say these should not even exist either." The Doctor said smugly.

"Okay guys!" Peter said trying to stop this before it fell into an argument "Can we please wrap this up and go home?"

"I'll second that!" Winston said unhooking his proton gun from his pack.

"I'll third it!" Ray said holding his proton wand ready.

Egon just unhooked his own proton gun as a sign he agreed as well.

"Ah, I really wouldn't try that if I were you" the Doctor said calmly stepping back a little, he didn't appear very concerned but that look in his eyes made Ray think he knew something they didn't.

"Why shouldn't we?" Ray asked raising his proton gun.

"Ray, he's obviously some amateur ghost hunter trying to muscle in on our job" Peter said aiming his proton gun at the panicking ghosts, the look in the Doctors eyes was one of 'don't say I didn't warn you.'

"Don't fire until you see the glow of their eyes." Peter said "On three. One, two, THREE!" All four ghostbusters pressed on their triggering mechanisms and long lances of dancing light beams fired from the tips of their weapons. The ghosts however didn't behave as Ray expected, rather than dance around and avoid their proton blasts they stood still and almost looked like they were welcoming it. Their proton blasts wrapped around all of the ghosts trapping them like a tightening lasso.

Ray shut off his proton blaster, reached behind his back and pulled out a ghost trap that was attached to the opposite side of the pack from where the proton gun was usually held. He knelt down and slid it along the floor. He pulled on the cord to stop it rolling into the slime puddle, after seeing what it did to the Doctor's device he feared it'd start eating the ghost trap. There was also a looped tangle in the cord he noticed, he'll untangle that later. He placed the activation peddle on the floor and stood back up.

Ray stepped on the peddle the small pair of doors on the trap swung open, a long, inverted cone of bright light extended up into the air. Ray reactivated his proton blaster and fired at the ghosts again and together the four ghostbusters dragged the ghosts back towards the trap. This was weird! The ghosts weren't putting up the least bit of a fight, in fact they were almost trying to swim towards the trap willingly!

One of the slimy spectres suddenly broke free from the entangled pack and Winston tried to re-aim his proton stream to stop it, but there was no need, the ghost, a goblin like creature with pointy ears landed on the floor, looked back at the slime puddle and in a blind panic sprinted towards the trap screaming its head off and dived headlong into it!

Ray refocused his mind on keeping the rest of the ghosts tangled up until they were all in the cone of light, when they were he stamped on the peddle again and all four ghostbusters shut off their proton blasters. The rest of the ghosts were dragged down into the small box far too easily and the doors slammed shut on them, the trap sparking and hissing a little.

"Did anyone think that was too easy?" Egon asked lowering his proton blaster.

"I'll say" Winston said "I've never seen a ghost willingly get captured like that before."

"No, we have" Ray interjected "Remember Peters 'Ghost Attractor'?" Ray said referring to a previous job.

"Yeah, I remember" Winston said "Mee-Krah" A few years ago Peter built what he thought was a 'Ghost Attractor' designed to bring the ghosts to them, it was just a jumbled mass of machines that in reality made a P.K.E. capacitor. But at the time it had appeared to work, ghosts were flocking towards HQ in their thousands to be sent into their containment unit. But what they didn't know was the ghosts were actually running away in fear of the giant creature Mee-Krah, an entity that actually ate ghosts and burnt the ground where it walked, and it was approaching New York but using the 'Ghost Attractor' they defeated Mee-Krah and saved New York and the rest of the ghosts that haunted it. You'd think they'd all be grateful after that. Were these ghosts running in fear of this corrosive slime stuff for a similar reason?

Peter walked towards the trap and picked it up by the cord "Hey, it makes our jobs easier" he said turning around to face them. Only then did any of them notice the giant white blob growing in the white slime behind Peter.

"Umm, Peter" Ray said as he and the other Ghostbusters drew their proton guns, except for Peter who stood there oblivious to the danger behind him.

"What?" Peter asked turning around and saw the advancing white blob, he did a double take before he finally screamed and ran back towards the other Ghostbusters drawing his own weapon.

The slime blob started to form a tear in its lower section that looked like a mouth, two slits opened up near its 'head' that looked like eyes and long tentacles sprouted that turned into arms the size of tree trunks. It didn't look the least bit friendly, in fact its long arms reached out menacingly towards the four Ghostbusters.

"Got any other bright idea's Peter?" Winston said as the blob loomed over them.

"Yeah, I got one!" Peter said quaking with fear "BLAST IT!"

All four Ghostbusters fired their proton beams at it and the dancing lances of light all impacted the creature, but they didn't warp around it like it did the ghosts, instead they just hit the surface of the blob and seemed to just stop. The blob creature came closer and closer gaining more and more mass as it approached, getting larger and larger.

"It's not working!" Peter shouted

"Oh, you noticed!" Ray called over the loud hiss of their equipment.

"It wants the entities you've caught!" the Doctor called from behind it "Toss it here!" he called raising his arms.

Ray didn't know why he did it, fear or maybe he trusted this stranger that he had just met but he stopped firing, snatched the trap from Peter's belt and took a few steps back. He swung the trap by the cord above his head like a cowboy ready to cast a lasso and released the trap at just the right moment to let it sail through the air.

The trap sailed over the blob monster who reached up to grab it, but his arms were too short –they extended but wouldn't extend fast enough-, but the trap was going to land short of the Doctor actually in the slime puddle! That was until the Doctor caught it by the tangled loop of its cord on the hook of his umbrella and brought it back to him.

The Doctor whistled at the creature who's features vanished from its surface and reappeared on its other side facing the Doctor. It started advancing towards him, its long arms dripping goo and its surface began to smoulder.

"Set your Proton emitters at 1196 megahertz!" the Doctor called as he slowly backed away from the creature. Ray did as the Doctor suggested, turning a few dials on his proton wand though the others looked at Egon a little unsure if they should do as he said.

"But that'll overload the equipment in seconds!" Egon called.

Setting his equipment up Ray fired again and this time it was much more effective. Though the proton blast didn't lasso the creature it did cause electrical sparks to start flowing around it, trapping it just as effectively.

Peter and Winston now agreed this was a good idea and reset their equipment as the Doctor had instructed and fired, Egon was the last to do it. The blob was being held back as the Doctor turned tail and ran back down the corridor he had appeared through while the Ghostbusters tried to drag the creature back.

"Now what?" Peter cried

"You think that Doctor has a plan?" Winston called.

"He knew how to stop the blob" Ray called for some reason trusting the stranger. The blob began to move, it was slow progress for it but it was moving.

Ray was aware his pack was getting very, very hot at his back and an alarm began to sound, a high pitched whine to tell them their equipment was rapidly overheating. "Turn your beams off!" Egon shouted.

"If we turn them off Mr. Blobby gets free!" Peter called.

"If we don't it'll be just as bad as crossing the streams!" Egon called, at the sound of this they all switched their blasters off to avoid a nuclear incident.

"How long will it take for them to cool?" Peter asked.

"At a rough estimation" Egon mused "two, maybe three days."

"Three days... THREE DAYS?" Peter shouted "Egon why do you always wait until now to say stuff like that?"

The blob was moving down the corridor following the Doctor at a faster pace, it was still slow but it was moving. Instinctively though their equipment was overheated the four Ghostbusters began to run after it.

"What are we gonna do when he find it?" Peter asked "Our blasters won't work."

"I don't know" Egon said, and at that Peter came to a stop allowing the others to race past him.

"Then why are we running after it?" he said standing in defiance, but Ray and Winston went back and grabbed him by the arms and dragged him along until he was running again.

* * *

As they raced back down the path they had taken Egon noticed several things. The first was the blob monster was collecting up all the white slime it rolled over as if it was collecting it all up into its form, second the solid wall they had passed through had vanished leaving it open for them to walk through, third the Doctor's odd machines were gone and fourth, the more slime this creature seemed to collect into itself the colder it became. They were now following the creature down the path Winston had followed when he found Egon and the Doctor.

Though there were four pair of running feat they could clearly hear the Doctor's spats clapping against the stone floor, but soon they stopped. Egon heard a squeak like door hinges opening and then rapidly closing with a bang.

They rounded a corner and the blob creature was now so big it practically filled corridor. It looked like it was reaching down towards something, gurgling a little as it did.

"Now what?" Peter asked, but he never got his answer. The blob creature yelled like an unearthly demon as it appeared to get an electric shock off whatever it had just touched. It backed off but only for a few seconds while it composed itself and began sliding towards whatever it tried to grab.

There came a loud thud that echoed around the corridor and the space filled with a low hum, a hum that began to slowly get louder. Egon felt a light gust of wind blow past the blob creature and ruffle his hair. There came a wheezing, groaning that started up, the same type he'd heard earlier before he found the Doctor. A blue light beyond the blob flashed brightly on and off with the groaning noise that sounded like an engine the way it rose and lowered in pitch, each cycle becoming louder and stronger before it slowly began to fade out as if whatever was making it was getting further and further away very, very quickly. When the noise stopped and the air fell still again.

"What the heck was that?" Peter asked.

"Sounded like a cow in labour" Winston shrugged.

The blob stopped and fell still, it stood there and lowered its arms which merged into its dome from. Then slowly it began to shrink and flatten itself again into the floor like it was melting. Whatever had happened on the other side had clearly worked, the creature had given up was just dissolving back into its slime components.

"What is it doing?" Winston asked.

"Escaping look!" Peter called when a drain grate became visible through the slime, it was escaping down into sewer system!

The four Ghostbusters circled around the drain and looked down at the inky blackness, all it had left was a thin residue from where it had been. Egon took out his P.K.E. meter from his belt and scanned the drain grate.

"I'm not getting any reading off it!" Egon said raising his glasses off his nose before lowering them again as if his glasses were preventing him from seeing something.

"Hey, it's gone!" Winston called.

"We know it's gone Winston we saw it slither down the drain" Peter said half jokingly, half patronisingly.

"No" Winston said "I mean the blue phone booth I found."

This peaked Egon's interest again. "Hmm. Where was it?" he asked Winston sounding more like his old professional self again. Winston walked out of the slimy residue the creature had left behind and pointed at a specific spot just beyond it. There had defiantly been something there, there was a small square patch where something had clearly been standing in the dusty floor, even though the dust had been blown around a little by the gust something had clearly stood here recently and whatever it was appeared to be the epicentre of the gust the way all the dust appeared to be blown away from this one spot.

Egon raised his P.K.E. all ghost signals were reduced to residual traces, that usually happened after a capture, except for two peaks, one was obviously Slimer back outside but it was the second peak that had Egon's interest. It was an exact match to the readings he'd picked up earlier when he first heard that strange groaning, engine noise, only now rather than becoming stronger the signal was becoming weaker as if every second whatever was making it was getting further and further away.

"What have you found Egon?" Ray asked peering over his shoulder at the meters screen.

"I don't know" Egon replied.

"Hey wait a minute, where's the Doctor?" Winston asked looking around.

"And where's our ghost trap?" Ray exclaimed.

"Where's our pay check?" Peter added unconcerned.

* * *

**To be continued...**

* * *

**Athours notes: **The previous job that described the entity Mee-Krah

is from the Real Ghostbusters episode 'Standing Room Only.'

Don't worry, this isn't the only encouter the guys will have with the Doctor ;)

All reviews are open and welcome, so if you enjoyed the chapter why not share your thoughts on it with me.

Cheers.


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